In much of North America, it officially feels like fall. Temperatures and leaves are dropping, and the fall rituals of football games, Halloween, and pumpkin spice-flavored everything are in full swing.
All this fall goodness is accompanied by a scheduling shift. On Sunday, Nov. 6, most of North America will “fall back” to standard time, setting clocks back one hour for the end of daylight saving time.
Even though most of us will gain an hour of sleep next week, polls find most Americans don’t like changing their clocks. And for good reason! A large body of research demonstrates that daylight saving time harms our health and well-being.
Why do we change our clocks in the first place? Most people think that farmers originally requested daylight saving time so they would have more daylight for working outside, but this is a myth. Benjamin Franklin first proposed the time shift in 1784 to conserve candles. Congress didn’t implement this practice until 1918, to save energy at the start of World War I.
Research shows that daylight saving time leads to sleep loss—even in the fall when we gain an hour of sleep. That’s because most people simply wake up earlier, leading to a net loss of sleep. There is evidence that these sleep disruptions last five days or longer. Changing our clocks results in an entire work week where most of the country is more sleep-deprived than usual.
There is also clear evidence that changing our clocks increases the incidence of emotional and behavioral disorders, stress-related immune disorders, and accidents involving injuries. Further, a separate study found that moving the clocks back in the fall results in an 11 percent increase in depressive episodes.
The health effects of changing our clocks are so clear that the American Academy of Sleep Medicine has been calling for getting rid of daylight saving time for the past two years.
For now, anyway, we are stuck with the time changes. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine suggests some steps you can take to make the time change feel a little easier.
- Go to sleep at your usual bedtime on Saturday night before we turn the clocks back.
- Adjust your clocks at bedtime, not before.
- Try to get up at your normal time on Sunday morning. If you have gone to bed at your normal time, that should give you an extra hour of sleep.
- If possible, try to get your body moving: get outside in the morning light, which resets your body by boosting cortisol levels (which give you energy) and halting melatonin production (which makes you sleepy).
The take-home message: “Falling back” has some negative consequences for our health. You can minimize them by sticking to a regular sleep schedule and exercising in the morning.
Speak Your Mind