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The Beatles took America by storm during their first visit to the U.S. in 1964. Just one month after their historic television appearance, the band started working on a film that would bring Beatlemania to the big screen.
A Hard Day’s Night captured the charm of the four boys from Liverpool who would change the face of popular music. Directed by Richard Lester and featuring iconic pop anthems, including the title track, “Can’t Buy Me Love”, and “If I Fell”, A Hard Day’s Night reconceived the movie musical.
Needless to say, it exerted an incalculable influence on music videos, and is one of the most deliriously entertaining movies of all time. Here are some fun facts about the mop-topped movie.

An off-the-cuff comment by Ringo led to the movie title, when he invented the phrase “a hard day’s night” at the end of an exhausting day.

The title track was written in one day, eight days before filming. It was shot, edited, and mixed in just four months.

Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon attended the movie’s premiere at the London Pavilion on July 6, 1964. It was the eve of Ringo’s 24th birthday and the 7th anniversary of Lennon and Paul meeting after John’s former band, The Quarrymen, performed at a Garden Fête. Over 200,000 fans greeted the band for the film’s Liverpool debut.

Model and artist Pattie Boyd appears in several scenes in the movie: she was one of the schoolgirls on the train, for example. Boyd fell in love with her future husband George Harrison during filming, and they got married in 1966 with McCartney serving as his best man.

In the “I’m Just Happy to Dance With You” scene, there’s a visual pun featuring a backdrop of beetles, the insects, behind the dancers.

A Hard Day’s Night writer, Owen, who spent several days observing the band before writing the movie, created “types” for each of the musicians: Lennon was the smart guy, Paul was the cute and sensible one, George was the quiet and shy type, while Ringo was the laconic clown.

The news conference scene featured several real journalists. It was meant to mimic the press reception in New York during the Beatles’ first American tour, when reporters were amused by the “Beatlemania” craze.
In actual fact “The Beatles” are never mentioned in the movie’s dialogue, but the band’s name appears throughout the film.

Studio United Artists was concerned about how the Beatles would appear on film and even considered dubbing their voices, replacing them with those of trained actors, but Lester refused to allow that to happen.

(adapted from www.flavorwire.com)

Are you truly aware of the importance of sleep? Something we all do and which scientists still don’t fully understand. A lot of research has been done over the years but we still have a lot to learn.

Every person I meet through my practice presents with some form or other of physical and mental symptoms but, above all, the majority of them have one thing in common: a lack of concentration. One of the very first questions I always ask them is “How much shuteye do you get?” It sounds silly but it’s very serious indeed.

The effects of sleep deprivation are immense. Take the following evidence from a study carried out in 1965 in which a 17-year-old high-school student, Randy Gardner, stayed awake for 264 hours or 11 days. The effects of sleep deprivation were immediate. Already by day two his eyes stopped focusing which obviously would have caused him a headache. By day three, he wasn’t the same relaxed and composed person anymore. He had become moody and uncoordinated which means his personality was altered. By the end of the experiment, his problems were numerous, he struggled to concentrate and had trouble with short-term memory. He was also paranoid and started hallucinating.

Although Gardner recovered without long-term psychological or physical damage, losing shuteye can result in hormonal imbalance, physical illness, and, in extreme cases, death.

We might not know exactly why we sleep to begin with, but we do know it’s absolutely essential. Some people say they don’t need to sleep and that they never feel tired. It’s a common topic among all people. We’ve all asked the question, “How long should we sleep?” and “Is there an exact standard for everyone?”
Well, actually no, there isn’t. Adults need seven to eight hours of sleep a night, and adolescents need about ten.

We usually grow sleepy due to signals from our body telling our brain we are tired and external signals telling us it’s dark outside. These days, however, since the onset of the digital age, sleep deprivation has become a reality for many people. Just the light emitted by the screen of our devices is enough to send confusing messages to our brain affecting our natural Circadian rhythm.

I always advise my clients to turn their phones off at least an hour before going to bed to help the natural rise in sleep-inducing chemicals, like adenosine and melatonin which send us into a light doze that grows deeper, making our breathing and heart rate slow down and our muscles relax. This process is so important as it allows our bodies to repair DNA and replenish themselves for the day ahead.

A great proportion of the population, especially teenagers, are regularly sleep deprived. Staying awake can cause life-threatening bodily harm. It has been found to be linked to diabetes, obesity and increased risk of stroke. In 2014 a devoted soccer fan died after staying awake for 48 hours to watch the World Cup. His death was caused by a stroke. Studies have also shown that sleep is important to flush away toxic by-products that accumulate between cells. One thing is very very clear. Sleep is far from “a waste of time” as my teenage son puts it. It’s a necessity if we want to maintain our health and sanity.

Every day, the Earth rotates. The sun appears on the horizon in the morning, and sets later in the day. We’ve built our lives and societies around this rhythm, with days divided into hours, minutes, and seconds. But in some places on Earth, the summer sun doesn’t set at all for months. With their concept of a day already so different from the rest of the world’s, the population of one Arctic village started thinking: what if we got rid of the concept of time altogether?

The original idea came from Kjell Ove Hveding, who lives north of the Arctic Circle in the Norwegian village of Sommarøy. The idea has since taken off, and has been featured in Norway’s national press. Hveding even took a petition to his local member of parliament to get rid of time in the village. His motivation is to make Sommarøy a place where people can do whatever they want, whenever they want.

“You have to go to work, and even after work, the clock takes up your time,” Hveding explained. “I have to do this, I have to do that! People have forgotten how to be impulsive, to decide that the weather is good, the sun is shining, I can just live.”

The proposal is sparse on details, but essentially, without time, shops would open whenever the shopkeeper wanted, people could go outside whenever they wanted, and people could just meet up impulsively, rather than by appointment.

This kind of lifestyle is obviously not for everyone, and Sommarøy has just 321 residents.

So can humans truly ditch clocks? The answer, in short, is no. Most importantly, we live in a society that relies on days divided into hours and minutes. Removing clocks might make things feel more flexible if you choose to live outside these rules, but ultimately labour, schooling and transportation all rely on time.
Hveding himself was about to catch a plane after our interview, something that would surely be impossible without clocks.

It would also impact people’s health. “The problem is that humans did not evolve in the Arctic,” commented Hanne Hoffman, a scientist who studies circadian rhythm. “Our bodies have adapted to this 24-hour cycle generated by the rotation of the earth. We can’t really go against evolution, and that’s what is happening in these locations. You’re going against what we’re programmed to do.” Typically, people in the Arctic compensate by shutting out the light in their homes during what would normally be night-time hours.

A series of hormones and metabolic processes respond to light and time, telling your body what to do at different moments of the day. Even processes like digestion and body temperature are linked to this rhythm. Circadian rhythm misalignment, where your body is working on a separate schedule from your mind, is a risk factor for disease, she explained. Hoffman was especially concerned that children, who already face changes to their circadian rhythm as they enter puberty, might suffer at school in such conditions.

And experiments have shown that humans don’t lose their rhythm, even in the total absence of light. Nicola Smyllie, investigator scientist at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, cites the case of Michel Siffre, who lived in a dark cave for months. Though his schedule slowly went out of sync with the rest of the world, he still maintained an approximately 24-hour rhythm.

Still, the idea of trying to live without time at least for a week or two is rather attractive. Hveding says that ultimately he just wants people to see time from his perspective—and to be more relaxed and impulsive.

(adapted from gizmodo.com)