Random musings: How To Prepare Your Sleep For The End Of Daylight Savings Time

Today's blog post is from a blog post by Dr. Michael Breus:

When you think about daylight savings time, do you immediately think about getting more sleep or less? For some people, the time change is no big deal. But for a lot of people, daylight savings time means daytime sleepiness, sluggishness, and exhaustion.

Thankfully though, all this can be avoided with a few easy changes to your routine in the week leading up to the time change. Before we get into how to adjust to daylight savings time, let’s take a brief look at its history, and why you may feel so tired after the change.

The article then talks about why we have DST and the history of it. If you want to find out more, click the link at the top of this page.

Why Do You Feel Tired After Daylight Savings Time?

Daylight savings time may be intended to save energy, but it can have the opposite effect on your own body! This is because your circadian rhythm may fall out of alignment after the clock change.

Your circadian rhythm helps regulate your sleep cycle, and because it’s influenced by light exposure, the combination of the time change and changed light outside can cause circadian misalignment.

Are you a morning lark or a night owl? Each may react differently to the change in time. Check out the article for more info on the different chronotypes.

How to Get Great Sleep as Daylight Savings Time Begins or Ends

Whether you are preparing to lose an hour as you transition into daylight savings time or gain one as you return to standard time, the time shift can be disorienting and rough on your sleep.

To avoid any post-daylight savings time sleep problems, all you need to do is make some easy changes to your sleep hygiene and bedtime routine. These can help you sleep better whether you’re waking up to sunshine, or to darkness.

These tips aren’t just for adults— teens and kids of all ages will benefit too! Just be sure to incorporate these suggestions into your child’s bedtime routine as you would your own.

1. Follow a Consistent Sleep Schedule— Preferably According to Your Chronotype

2. Eliminate Blue Light at Night

3. Bring on the Morning Light!

4. Listen to Some Music

5. Take a Cool— Not Cold— Shower In the Morning

6. Eat The Right Breakfast

If you don't know your chronotype, now would be a good time to go to the article and take the quiz (I'm a dolphin).

How Daylight Savings Time Affects Each Chronotype

Remember how I said that daylight savings time affects the chronotypes differently? Here’s how the time change tends to affect people according to their chronotype.

When Daylight Savings Time Ends

Lions

When daylight savings time ends, you won’t need the extra hour of sleep— for you lions, it’s generally not in your nature to sleep in any way. If you’re a lion, Daylight Savings Time actually has a tendency to affect you negatively. Why? Because on this particular day, your internal clock will likely be going off at your normal time— 5:00 AM, which will now be 4:00 AM— and you’re not going to need to sleep in.

I recommend you try and stick to your normal schedule— plan a quiet activity like reading, extra meditation, or write and respond to emails. In about a day, your waking pattern should be adjusted. It’s best if you go into another area of your home and turn on all the lights. You won’t need melatonin production at that hour because you’re already up and starting your day.

Wolves

You’ll be very happy with your extra hour of sleep because wolves are generally affected positively. Why? Because you are always sleep-deprived!

Daylight saving time means you’re getting an extra hour of much-needed rest. However, I encourage you not to stay up later the night before. You’ll naturally want to stay up later knowing you’ll get the extra “free” hour, but it will eliminate any benefit you’ll receive from the catch-up sleep.

Dolphins

Now is the time to lower your anxiety and sleep in. Most Dolphins tell me they sleep best from 4:00-6:00 AM, so enjoy the extra hour! Just remember to get a glass of water to rehydrate when you wake and if you REALLY want to start your morning right, have sex. For you dolphins, sex makes a lot of sense from a chronotype and hormone perspective.

Bears

As you may have already guessed, if you’re a bear, daylight saving time will hardly have any effect on you. You can sleep in if you like. It will provide you with a little more rest, so enjoy the extra time if you’re so inclined. You’ve earned it!

The article then goes on to talk about what to do when DST begins...we'll revisit that in six months.

A few other guidelines I recommend you follow include:

If possible, avoid alcohol during the weekend of the time change.
For better sleep quality, keep up your exercise routine during the week. Maybe throw in an extra workout that weekend too.
On the morning of the time change, make sure you get sunlight to help reset your body clock.

Don’t Lose Sleep Over Daylight Savings Time!

The time change from daylight savings time can wreak havoc on your internal clock, but it doesn’t have to. You can get good sleep even as your body adjusts to the clock change. Give some of these tips a try and you can keep getting the restful sleep you need even as the daylight hours change.