The emotional cycle: Fliess's 28-day period, read as mood

Meaning

In biorhythm the emotional cycle is the 28-day wave. The popular books tied its upper half to openness, warmth and good spirits and its lower half to a quieter, more inward mood. That is the theory's description.

Because 28 is an even number, the emotional curve is the tidiest of the four. It starts on the midline on the day of birth, reaches its top at the start of cycle day 8, crosses the midline exactly at the start of cycle day 15, touches its bottom at the start of cycle day 22 and is back on the midline as the next cycle begins. Its critical days are therefore cycle days 1 and 15, and every emotional cycle has thirteen days above the midline, thirteen below it and two on it.

On our chart a critical day of this cycle is a turning point. The popular books attached advice to such days; none of it is repeated here.

Where the 28 days come from

Wilhelm Fliess proposed the 28-day period in 1897, in the same book as the 23-day one, and called it female. He took it from the menstrual cycle and held that every person, man or woman, carries both periods. He did not take it from the Moon. In Der Ablauf des Lebens (1906) he gives the Moon's month, new moon to new moon, as 29.5306 days and sets it aside: his periods were meant to be the body's own, not the sky's.

Hermann Swoboda's book of 1904 built on Fliess and turned the periods towards the mind. He looked for them in memory, in ideas that come unbidden, in dreams and in moods, and counted them from the birth date, which Fliess had not done. Whether Swoboda borrowed too much became part of Fliess's public quarrel of 1906; a modern study of the documents finds the charge of plagiarism out of place but confirms that Swoboda depended on Fliess.

The word "emotional" belongs to the American books of the 1960s and 1970s. Casio's calculator patent and a 1978 study of accidents call the same cycle "sensitivity".

What the studies found

The accident and exam studies of the 1970s looked for this cycle and its critical days in their records, among them a 1978 thesis on 222 accidents at one Portland firm that calls the cycle "sensitivity"; Terence Hines reviewed 134 studies of the theory in 1998. What they found is set out on the biorhythm page, under Evidence and criticism.

Correspondences

Each item with how it stands: “sourced” is in the work cited, “our construction” is EsoTerrier’s own, and “disputed” means the sources disagree.

Fliess's name for it

Female: the 28-day series, which he started from the menstrual cycle sourced

The Moon

Not the Moon's month, which is about 29.5 days; Fliess rejected the Moon for his periods sourced

Swoboda's use

Memory, ideas that come unbidden, dreams and moods sourced

The label "emotional"

Standard in the American books by the 1960s and 1970s; who used it first is not traced sourced

The label "sensitivity"

Casio's patent and Zimmerman's study of 1978 sourced

Critical days on our chart

Cycle days 1 and 15, as the 1970s calculators counted sourced

Colour

Blue on the old popular charts; a convention of the charts, not of the theory sourced

How the schools read it

Fliess (1897, 1906)

The female period of 28 days, starting from the menstrual cycle and combined with the 23-day period in sums of whole multiples.

Swoboda (1904)

Built openly on Fliess and carried the periods into the mind: memory, unbidden ideas, dreams and moods, counted from the birth date.

The American books (1961 onwards)

A sine wave named emotional, its upper half tied to warmth and good spirits and its lower half to a quieter mood.

Casio (1975 to 1978)

"Sensitivity", with critical days on cycle days 1 and 15.

The critics (1978 to 1998)

Looked for the 28-day curve in accident records and exam scores.

EsoTerrier

Draws the cycle from the birth date, with its critical days on cycle days 1 and 15.

Claims about it

• The 28-day cycle is the Moon's month.

  false

  What the record shows: A month from new moon to new moon is about 29.5 days. Fliess started from the menstrual cycle, gave the Moon's month as 29.5306 days in 1906 and rejected it for his periods.

• Swoboda found the 28-day period independently of Fliess.

  false

  What the record shows: His 1904 book builds openly on Fliess's of 1897; a 2003 study of their quarrel confirms the dependence.

• The emotional cycle governs how people get on and the quality of their judgement, so conversations and decisions should be timed by it.

  false

  What the record shows: No study bore it out; a 1998 review of 134 studies sums them up.

• Fliess named this cycle emotional.

  false

  What the record shows: He called it female. The label emotional is from the books of the 1960s and 1970s.

Elsewhere on EsoTerrier

• Physical cycle (23 days) Fliess's male period, the other half of his pair
• Intellectual cycle (33 days) the third classical cycle
• Biorhythm: myths and disputed claims all eight claims and what the record shows
• Mayan Calendar a fixed count of days kept as a living calendar