Biorhythm Theory

At the turn of the 20th Century, vital scientific discoveries were being made simultaneously and independently of each other in Berlin and Vienna by  two eminent Doctors which would formulate Biorhythm (or Biological Rhythm). According to Dr Herman Swoboda and Dr Wilhelm Fliess and their Biorhythm Theory, we all start out life at the same point; our birth. Each of us has three “cycles”; Physical, Emotional and Intellectual. These cycles begin on the day of birth and oscillate throughout one's life. Each cycle has its own associated characteristics and period.

Dr Wilhelm Fleiss (1859-1928) was teaching nose and throat medicine at the University of Berlin when he recognised what appeared to be a pronounced pattern of recurring illness in several of the patients under his care.

The ability of patients to respond to treatment varied to such an extent that he devoted much of his life to ascertaining the cause of such reactions, and he subsequently concluded his punctilious research work by declaring that there were indeed two definite biological cycles that appeared to influence our entire body chemistry.

The first cycle that Fleiss discovered, of 23 days duration, appeared to influence physical response, strength and endurance; whilst the second and equally important cycle, of 28 days duration, affected the mental attitude of his patients.

Dr Herman Swoboda (1873 - 1963) was a Professor of Psychology at the University of Vienna. He was conducting similar Biorhythm research work into individuals' characteristic fluctuations and although his initial interest stemmed from the possibility of a genetic influence, his final conclusions were    identical to those made by Fleiss.

The third major cycle that makes up the trio of cycles popularly regarded as Biorhythm Theory was discovered by Alfred Teltscher in the mid 1920s, several years after the inital discoveries made by Fleiss and Swoboda.

Teltscher, who was an Engineering Professor at the University of Innsbruck, was becoming increasingly concerned by the occasional, inexplicable lapse of concentration depicted by several of his students.

Having been impressed by the research work conducted and published by Swoboda and Fleiss, Teltscher set out to prove the accuracy of the theory for himself and to ascertain if there was a similar cycle, or internal body-clock, that somehow influenced the ability of the brain to absorb information.

Thus a third Biorhythm cycle, of 33 days duration, was discovered and the PSI (Physical/Sensitivity/Intellectual) theory had evolved. In its modern context this is now more popularly regarded as the Biorhythm Theory with the Sensitivity cycle more commonly expressed as the Emotional cycle.