Biological Clocks introduces the subject of human chronobiology. It describes biological clocks; why we have clocks; how biological clocks relate to sleep disorders, depression, and jet lag; and how the reader can measure his/her own rhythms.

Implementing safety practices in healthcare saves lives and improves the quality of care: it is therefore vital to apply good clinical practices, such as the WHO surgical checklist, to adopt the most appropriate measures for the prevention of assistance-related risks, and to identify the potential ones using tools such as reporting & learning systems. The culture of safety in the care environment and of human factors influencing it should be developed from the beginning of medical studies and in the first years of professional practice, in order to have the maximum impact on clinicians' and nurses' behavior. Medical errors tend to vary with the level of proficiency and experience, and this must be taken into account in adverse events prevention. Human factors assume a decisive importance in resilient organizations, and an understanding of risk control and containment is fundamental for all medical and surgical specialties. This open access book offers recommendations and examples of how to improve patient safety by changing practices, introducing organizational and technological innovations, and creating effective, patient-centered, timely, efficient, and equitable care systems, in order to spread the quality and patient safety culture among the new generation of healthcare professionals, and is intended for residents and young professionals in different clinical specialties.

Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine, 5th Edition, by Meir H. Kryger, MD, FRCPC, Thomas Roth, PhD, and William C. Dement, MD, PhD, delivers the comprehensive, dependable guidance you need to effectively diagnose and manage even the most challenging sleep disorders. Updates to genetics and circadian rhythms, occupational health, sleep in older people, memory and sleep, physical examination of the patient, comorbid insomnias, and much more keep you current on the newest areas of the field. A greater emphasis on evidence-based approaches helps you make the most well-informed clinical decisions. And, a new more user-friendly, full-color format, both in print and online, lets you find the answers you need more quickly and easily. Whether you are preparing for the new sleep medicine fellowship examination, or simply want to offer your patients today's best care, this is the one resource to use! Make optimal use of the newest scientific discoveries and clinical approaches that are advancing the diagnosis and management of sleep disorders.

A medical breakthrough explained by the leading authority on the connection between health and your body clock Chronotherapy-adjusting the care of the body to coincide with the body's natural clock-is poised to be the next major revolution in medical science. An understanding and awareness of these rhythms will enable us to maximize the effects not only of medications and other treatments, but also of diets, exercise programs, and other daily routines. The Body Clock Guide to Better Health combines a detailed discussion of major issues such as sleep, exercise, and nutrition, with a comprehensive A-to-Z reference to specific disorders. Among the health concerns it addresses are AIDS, arthritis, asthma, ADD, backache, cancer, depression, diabetes, digestive problems, allergies, heart disease, chronic pain, sexual dysfunction, stroke, and complications from pregnancy. General chapters explore the big picture-including monthly cycles and life cycles-and provide invaluable advice on foods and dietary supplements, fitness, better sex, jet lag, and more. The first book to look at body rhythms from a practical perspective, The Body Clock Guide to Better Health offers readers the dual benefits of improving the treatment of specific conditions while boosting their overall health and wellness.

Circadian rhythms, the biological oscillations based around our 24-hour clock, have a profound effect on human physiology and healthy cellular function. Circadian Rhythms: Health and Disease is a wide-ranging foundational text that provides students and researchers with valuable information on the molecular and genetic underpinnings of circadian rhythms and looks at the impacts of disruption in our biological clocks in health and disease. Circadian Rhythms opens with chapters that lay the fundamental groundwork on circadian rhythm biology. Section II looks at the impact of circadian rhythms on major organ systems. Section III then turns its focus to the central nervous system. The book then closes with a look at the role of biological rhythms in aging and neurodegeneration. Written in an accessible and informative style, Circadian Rhythms: Health and Disease,will be an invaluable resource and entry point into this fascinating interdisciplinary field that brings together aspects of neuroscience, cell and molecular biology, and physiology.

Winner of a British Medical Association Book Award A Brain Pickings Best Science Book of the Year Early birds and night owls are born, not made. Sleep patterns may be the most obvious manifestation of the highly individualized biological clocks we inherit, but these clocks also regulate bodily functions from digestion to hormone levels to cognition. Living at odds with our internal timepieces, Till Roenneberg shows, can make us chronically sleep deprived and more likely to smoke, gain weight, feel depressed, fall ill, and fail geometry. By understanding and respecting our internal time, we can live better. “Internal Time is a cautionary tale—actually a series of 24 tales, not coincidentally. Roenneberg ranges widely from the inner workings of biological rhythms to their social implications, illuminating each scientific tutorial with an anecdote inspired by clinical research...Written with grace and good humor, Internal Time is a serious work of science incorporating the latest research in chronobiology...[A] compelling volume.” —A. Roger Ekirch, Wall Street Journal “This is a fascinating introduction to an important topic, which will appeal to anyone who wishes to delve deep into the world of chronobiology, or simply wonders why they struggle to get a good night’s sleep.” —Richard Wiseman, New Scientist

With the invitation to edit this volume, I wanted to take the opportunity to assemble reviews on different aspects of circadian clocks and rhythms. Although most c- tributions in this volume focus on mammalian circadian clocks, the historical int- duction and comparative clocks section illustrate the importance of various other organisms in deciphering the mechanisms and principles of circadian biology. Circadian rhythms have been studied for centuries, but only recently, a mole- lar understanding of this process has emerged. This has taken research on circadian clocks from mystic phenomenology to a mechanistic level; chains of molecular events can describe phenomena with remarkable accuracy. Nevertheless, current models of the functioning of circadian clocks are still rudimentary. This is not due to the faultiness of discovered mechanisms, but due to the lack of undiscovered processes involved in contributing to circadian rhythmicity. We know for example, that the general circadian mechanism is not regulated equally in all tissues of m- mals. Hence, a lot still needs to be discovered to get a full understanding of cir- dian rhythms at the systems level. In this respect, technology has advanced at high speed in the last years and provided us with data illustrating the sheer complexity of regulation of physiological processes in organisms. To handle this information, computer aided integration of the results is of utmost importance in order to d- cover novel concepts that ultimately need to be tested experimentally.

This volume provides the reader with an overview of an intriguing and interdisciplinary field of research. For the first time the mammalian pineal gland, its mode of action and its physiological effects are discussed in a comprehensive, single-authored work.