I’m in UTC-5 and my brain sometimes resets to factory defaults UTC+8 lol

Actually, you have two cycles, like everyone else. A long cycle that is indeed 26-28 hour long, which makes sure you sleep every once in a while that is pure time based. And a short cycle that syncs to light.

These two cycles interact in complex ways, but the gist of it is that if you fuck with it by staying in a dark room with no lights but screens, it ends up being pretty random, with 26-28 hour long days.

Humans have an innate way of telling time. When you think about it, where would this sense come from?

Turns out that there is actually a small chunk of the brain that is dedicated to keeping time. And that system synchronizes with similar systems throughout the body to keep them synchronized.

And that primary system figures out how to align its own “clock” by connecting to other parts of the brain like the nerve paths of the eyes. It’s not fully understood yet, but at the very least we know that incoming light can have an effect.

This time-keeping functionality is critical for telling the body when to wake, sleep, be active, etc.

And it’s the equivalent of a pendulum in a grandfather clock… It ticks back and forth at a predictable rate. But it’s biomechanical in a sense that it runs on electrical and chemical signals, not a spring driven thing like in a physical clock.