Life is Rhythmic

Rhythmic

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt.

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 So many things in our lives are based on rhythm.  Perhaps most important is the heartbeat. It is amazing how long and steadily our hearts are able to continue working. The heart is an involuntary muscle, one we don’t decide to use the way we decide to use our leg muscles to walk or run. It just beats. BOOMboomBOOMboom, over and over again. It speeds up when we’re fearful, or falling in love, or we’ve been exercising, but the rhythm is the same.

 Have you ever thought about how often children’s games are based on rhythm?  Think about jump-rope rhymes:

I Had a Little Puppy

I had a little puppy. His name was Tiny Tim. I put him in the bathtub, To see if he could swim. He drank up all the water. He ate a bar of soap. The next thing you know, He had a bubble in his throat. In came the doctor (person jumps in). In came the nurse ( person jumps in). In came the lady With the alligator purse (person jumps in). Out went the doctor (person jumps out). Out went the nurse (person jumps out). Out went the lady With the alligator purse (person jumps out).

There are hundreds of these, along with nursery rhymes, silly songs, counting games and more. Some kids are born with a sense of rhythm; others develop it by playing these rhythmic games. All good athletes have a well-developed sense of rhythm; so do all musicians.

Circadian rhythm is a roughly 24-hour cycle of life that follows a pattern of some sort, different for plants, animals, weather, dark and light, and human. We humans are the ones who mess up our rhythms by sleeping too much or not enough, by working the graveyard shift when our bodies want to sleep, by eating too much just before bedtime, and by sleeping with lights on or some kind of noise in the background. When we mess up our circadian rhythms, our bodies and minds respond with stress and all its related ills. Modern life and technology have done a lot of damage to our normal life rhythms.

 Well. This is a vast topic, and obviously of some interest to me. So let’s end on a lighter note.  Years ago when I was teaching elementary music, this was a song my little kids loved to sing:

 

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