Five-Step Daylight Saving Time Survival Guide
Nobody likes it. We all agree it’s the worst. Why don’t we just stop doing it already? I’m talking about the pain-in-the-butt ritual of changing our time by an hour every spring and fall.
Like it or not (and we’ve already established that we don’t), we’re adjusting our clocks again this weekend. Daylight Saving Time begins at 2:00 a.m. Eastern on Sunday, March 14th, so before you go to bed on Saturday night, you’ll have to turn your clocks forward one hour. It does lead to lighter skies later in the day, which I like. However, according to Mind Body Green, losing that hour of sleep can have some negative effects on our health.
Research has shown that people tend to lose between 40 and 60 minutes of sleep the night after the time change. On top of that, studies have found the rate of heart attacks, strokes, and mood disorders (my mood certainly gets out of order) in the U.S. temporarily increases after we spring forward. Heart attacks and strokes!?! So we need any other reasons to stop doing this?
Is there a way to buffer the shock to our systems from the time shift? Sleep researchers Rebecca Robbins and Wendy M. Troxel offer a few tips to ease the pain. You should begin doing these things days before the Daylight Saving Time kicks in.
- Go to bed about 15 minutes earlier every night – 15 minutes earlier tonight, 30 minutes earlier tomorrow, and so on.
- Make sleep a priority – Be strict about bedtimes, lay off caffeine later in the day, avoid after-dinner booze, and don’t looking at electronics right before bed.
After the time change:
- Get outside as much as possible during the day, especially in the morning – The sun will help your body adjust.
- Keep your home extra dark at night – Turn bright lights off after the sun sets and power down electronics at least an hour before bed.
- Be gentle with yourself and your sleep partner – One of you may have more trouble with the change than the other. Allow for time and space to adjust. It’s not worth fighting over.
I’m hopeful that someday, in my lifetime, this foolishness will come to an end and we’ll just stick with Daylight Saving Time year round. In the meantime, you can read more about preserving some semblance of a good night’s sleep through this unnecessary one-hour leap into the future HERE.
