Daylight savings time hitting you like a brick? Here’s how to cope better

Daylight savings time hitting you like a brick? Here’s how to cope better

By Claire Cameron Edited by Jenna Bryner

When it comes to health, Daylight Saving Time, frankly, sucks. Emily Manugian, a senior staff scientist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, who studies the body’s biological clocks, says it’s not just that we lose an hour of sleep (which is harmful in itself), it’s that every day spent saving time during daylight hours takes a toll on our bodies.

“The whole time we’re on daylight savings time, we’re misaligning our environment with our body,” says Manoogian. “It’s not the one-hour shift that makes everyone feel worse. It’s the long-term disruption that makes us worse versions of ourselves.”

Experts, including psychologists, usually recommend trying to change your daily schedule before the clocks change to align with daylight saving time, perhaps eating a half-hour earlier or going to bed 15 minutes earlier than your usual time. But this isn’t possible for some people, and others may forget about the upcoming clock change. Others still may be more deeply affected by lost hours of sleep, just as some people are less able to deal with jet lag.

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Jet lag is a good way to think about daylight saving time, says Manugian, who is also a member of the Center for Circadian Biology at the University of California, San Diego, and the public outreach chair at the Society for Research on Biological Rhythms. We don’t just lose an hour of sleep; Our circadian system has also gone haywire. The circadian system refers to the set of body clocks – every cell with DNA has a clock, and each of these clocks feeds back into each other. Our brain acts as a kind of time god that uses light and other sensory signals to coordinate our behavior, such as when we eat and sleep, and it controls the timing of all clocks.

Leaning forward causes the body to go back one hour. “You’re forcing your body to do things it’s not ready to do yet,” says Manoogian. Eat breakfast: A few days after daylight saving goes into effect, your glucose regulation may be compromised as your body clocks think you’re fasting and still sleeping, when in reality you’re awake. If you eat first thing in the morning, your blood sugar levels may rise higher than normal. Cortisol, the brain hormone that naturally wakes you up, may also peak after you wake up, so you may feel moody and stressed before that hormone kicks in.

Cloudy thinking and poor food choices are also common reactions to the time change, she says. For those who find themselves a little out of it in the days following daylight savings, making sure you’re going outside, preferably in the sun, exercising and going to bed a week or two earlier may help combat some of these side effects. She says, sleep in if you can and don’t force yourself to do anything too strenuous in the morning for a few days. “Don’t put too much pressure on yourself,” she stresses.

Keeping our body clocks out of sync can be fatal, says Manoogian. “One of the most common things that daylight hours are associated with is an increase in cardiovascular events,” she explains. Some research has shown an increase was found The number of heart attacks and strokes in the following days increases as the clocks move forward, possibly as a result of misaligned cortisol. For people who are already at high risk, “that misalignment and forcing your body to do something before it’s ready can be enough to derail it,” she says. Lack of sleep can also lead to more car accidents.

After all, the body needs a few days to adjust to the changed time. Manugian says early birds who are already accustomed to waking up early may have an easier time adjusting than night owls. Different parts of the body make changes at different speeds, she says: Other vital organs like the brain and heart catch on to the new timing faster than non-vital organs and tissues, including your muscles and gut.

Food plays an important role in this process, she says: “This may also be a good time to re-evaluate when you should eat because many of us eat too early or too late.” Allowing yourself an hour after waking up to eat and a few hours before bed to digest can help regulate your circadian rhythm. Of course, people who need to follow a schedule, especially school-going children, do not have the luxury of taking their time in the morning.

Manoogian says that unfortunately for all of us forced to go through Daylight Savings Time, there have been no documented health benefits from the time change. “The whole time we’re engaged in this, we’re doing a little bit of harm to ourselves, and it affects some groups more than others,” she says.

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