How to Prepare for Daylight Saving Time
Ready to “spring forward” on Sunday, March 9? Here are five tips to help make the impending Daylight Saving Time change go more smoothly and to help your body adjust to the time change!
For most of us, the clocks change twice a year, “springing” forward 1 hour in March and “falling” back 1 hour in early November. See when Daylight Saving Time starts and ends this year.
Most Americans dislike this twice-yearly time reset. Earlier this year, the Senate passed legislation to make Daylight Saving Time permanent, perhaps as early as next year. See more about states objecting to changing the clock.
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Our bodies run by an internal clock, not a manmade clock, so even a modest time adjustment can take some getting used to, especially when the days feel shorter and darker as cold weather arrives. Even one extra hour of darkness can feel significant to some who feel low-energy during the low-light seasons of autumn and winter.
Does a Time Reset Affect Our Health?
For most of us, the time change doesn’t affect our health. Some people are barely aware of their body’s adjustment and might feel a little tired and irritable.
But for other folks, it can be significant. Be respectful and realize that your experience is different from others, especially those with underlying health issues. See this article referencing studies about increased traffic fatalities, heart attack risk, and depression.
How Long Does It Take for Your Body to Adjust?
Our body’s own time-keeping machine regulates sleep and metabolism. So, a time shift disrupts our sleep and circadian rhythms. It takes circadian and sleep rhythms a little “lag time” to transition.
The time change can affect sleeping and waking patterns for 5 to 7 days. So think about 1 week ahead.
5 Tips to Adjust to Time Changes
Many of these tips are great for any time of the year, but pay special attention to days around the clock change.
1. Go to bed and get up at the same time.
Get at least 7 hours of sleep on the day(s) before and after the transition. Lack of sleep tells the body to store fat. While staying up later or changing your habits is tempting, it’s best to keep your bedtimes consistent. The closer you stick to your normal routine, the faster your body will adjust to the time change.
If you have a really tough time twice a year when the clocks change, start planning ahead. A few days in advance, gradually adjust sleep and wake times by shifting bedtime 15 to 20 minutes each night. This helps your body make gradual shifts and more slowly adjust.
2. Practice good habits before bedtime.
In the days after the time change, quit caffeinated beverages 4 to 6 hours before bedtime. Avoid alcohol in the evening. If you are exercising, avoid workouts within 4 hours of bedtime because raising your body’s core temperature can make it harder to fall asleep.
If you know you have a tough time with time changes, you need to avoid electronics near bedtime, at least for a few days afterward. Electronics’ high-intensity light hinders melatonin, a hormone that triggers sleepiness. Light stimulates your brain and makes sleep difficult in the same way sunlight does. Also, turn off the television and pick up a book. Take a warm—not hot—shower. Dim the lights. Relax.
3. Keep your dinnertime consistent. Eat more protein and less carbs.
On the days around the time change, eat at the same time or even eat a little early. To ease the transition, shift your mealtime forward 15 minutes for a few days in a row.
Our sleep cycle and our eating patterns affect each other. Don’t overeat. Also, if you find yourself feeling snack-y, eat a snack that is high in protein instead of carbohydrates. (This might seem like good everyday advice, but it’s even more important during time changes.)
Try fruit with peanut butter or cheese with crackers. Go shop for fish, nuts, and other sources of protein for dinner this week! Avoid the pasta and carb-loaded snacks!
4. Get more light!
Go outside and get exposure to morning sunlight on the Sunday after the time change to help regulate your internal clock. Having shorter daylight hours affects our mood and energy levels, decreasing serotonin. Make time to take a morning or early afternoon walk outside when the Sun is out. Try using a light therapy box or an alarm light that brightens as you wake up.
In the autumn and winter, it’s dark after work. Consider shifting any outdoor exercise to when you can get sunlight; can you get outside for some morning light, even if you need to bundle up?
5. Take a short cat nap.
Some folks may disagree, but if you’re starting to stack up sleepless hours, it’s safer and healthier for your body to give in to a short nap than to continue without sleep. Make it a short nap (no more than 20 minutes) to restore lost sleep hours; however, do NOT take long naps. It may help to go outside into the natural sunlight to cue your body and help retrain your inner clock.
How do you adjust to time changes? We’d love to hear your thoughts.
Catherine Boeckmann
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Since they want to change the time change...I suggest just changing it by half an hour, that would make more sense. You would only loose a half hour of sleep in the winter months and a half hour of day light in the summer months. A win win sanerrio.
I have insomnia. Instead of waking up at 2am, I was up at 1am. Fun times.
DST has been irrelevant since the invention of the light bulb. That being said, I get up at the same time every day regardless of DST. So right now I am getting up at 5:00am as opposed to 6:00am. I just have an hour longer to sit around the house before work during the 5:00am time slot.
I have even seen some companies switch their start times along with DST. (starting at 7am vs. starting at 8am)
Please go into www.hoosiersforcentraltime.com where you will find lots very informed of information by Susannah Dillon who is the President of Central Time Coalition. I want this state of Indiana to be completely Central Time, where as 12 counties are CT and the other 80 counties is ET, which doesn't make any bit of chance and that we are much closer to Chicago, not New York.
Spring forward an hour is what gets everyone because you lose that hour. I start prepping a couple days before. I change my clock forward an hour on the clocks that don’t change automatically. I also go to bed an hour earlier on the night we change the clocks.
I just dont get the thinking that so many have in not wanting to change things for the better. Which a permanent switch to Daylight Savings Time would be. I agree 100% that switching back and forth ends up being more trouble than it’s worth. But what does that have to do with the decision on which time to adopt permanently? Answer, not a thing as they are two separate issues. Yet people seem to think they are somehow related in the thinking of “just go back to standard time and be done with it”. It’s like, “don’t bother me with this issue anymore and go back to the way things were back in the day. 70% of Americans prefer standard time to daylight time? Are you kidding me? Farmers, workers who benefit from an extra hour of light in the early mornings, fine, I get it.
I finally snagged an appointment for my COVID vaccine, at 7:30 a.m. on Monday, March 15th! The site I need to go to is more than an hour from my home, so I was preparing to get up that morning around 5:30. I didn’t realize until a few weeks ago that I would actually be dragging myself out of bed at 4:30. I’ve been self-isolating since the second week of February 2020, so dealing with the inconvenience of DST will be nothing compared with the past 13 months. Of course, there’s the Ides of March to keep in mind…
Both going in and coming out of DST, is no big deal. Plan for it!! I have something I don't usually have time for, or I have an article or a book I want to start set up to go.
If I am going to lose an hour, reading helps to make me sleepy and I'm gone faster than just going to 'hit-the-hay'! If as we are about to do, gain an hour, I will probably out of simply having gotten used to waking up at 'X' AM, have the book ready to read or I can start on something, so now that it is started (which I might not have done otherwise), I will get that task done and finished
Happy Halloween and back to Standard Time in whatever timezone you live in
The doctors say I have autoimmune diseases, fibromyalgia, lupus, sarcoidosis, psoriasis, psoriatric arthritis; therefor, it takes me at least a month to adjust to time changes. It causes daytime sleepiness, lethargy, more pain, and mood changes in people with autoimmune diseases . It is definitely a harmful practice for people with autoimmune diseases. I wish the time would stay the same year round. It has disrupted my life drastically throughout my adult life for the last 40 years. I believe I am healed by the blood of Jesus; however I definitely wish they would stop DST for the benefit of all people.
There should not be a 'vote' on nature!! Standard time should be constant as it was intended to be. It doesn't matter what the 'crybabies' want, sun at this time or that time; it affects health and safety when time is changed and was originally done in war time to save fuel, contrary to belief, farmers were against it. it was not done for them. Changing time disrupts our body clocks or circadian rhythm. Sun directly above should be noon, etc. PLEASE STOP MESSING WITH THE NATURAL SYSTEM. This should not be something to decide by vote; no one has the right to change the universe as it should be. If there is so much as one problem with it, which there is health wise according to stats, it should not be done. Just keep Standard time!
