How To Survive Daylight Savings in Four Easy Steps
Before we get started, I want you to know I’ve put in affiliate links to this post for some of the products that I mention. I’ve not been paid to talk about these and have used each of them personally and in many cases, professionally. Enjoy the read!
It’s coming.
Do you remember that wonderful coma like sleep you had last Fall when the ‘clocks fell back’ one hour?
I sure do. I snuggled into my bed after watching a movie. I felt the brief chill of my comforter quickly transform into a warm embrace.
The next thing I know; my eyes open and I’m refreshed for a new day!
Unfortunately, we slowly realize that, at some point, we will pay for this rest.
This Sunday, we turn our clocks forward one hour.
Hopefully for most of us, this will only mean some extra fatigue over the next week.
For others, the changing times will result in an increase in depressive episodes (Hanson et al., 2017), myocardial infarction (Sandhu, 2013), and even weight gain (Northwestern Medicine, 2021).
As a therapist and mental health clinician; I see this every year during the ‘fall back’ and ‘spring forward’ months.
How can something that seems so simple be so harmful to your well being?
The Circadian Rhythm
The circadian rhythm of your body is the term for the body’s regular responses to the time of day. This influences your mental, physical, and even behavioral performances!
It’s this circadian rhythm that gets, to be as clinically clear as possible, wonky when the times change.
This can influence our quantity and quality of sleep. It can interrupt our digestion and meal times. Since it can disrupt hormones; it also by proxy can interfere with any process those hormones are playing in your body.
How Does The Circadian Rhythm Work?
So, you’ve got this brain in your skull, right?
That brain has something called the (pack a lunch) SupraChiasmatic Nuclei (or SCN). This 20,000 odd collection of nerves cells hangs out in the hypothalamus area in your brain and acts as a kind of ‘master clock’. This master clock then regulates many processes in the body and is essential for our survival.
This clock sets itself based on its exposure to light (specifically blue light, around 470nm, for you super nerds out there) (Wahl et al., 2019)
So when the light times/exposures change that then screws up your master clock and thus, everything else it regulates.
We can’t be doomed to suffer from this, right?
How To Beat Daylight Saving Time in Four Easy Steps
Take the MEQ
Take the Morning-Eveningness Questionnaire here for free.
This tool will assess what times work best for your personal circadian rhythm.
Answer all the questions and it will give you what it approximates as your likely best wake time (as well as a best wind down and sleep time)!
Fun side bar: If you’ve done 23andme, then it has an optimal rise time in its assessment as well. Mine is 7:37am.
Write this information down somewhere as you will need it.
Expose yourself to a bright light source
Remember the time the MEQ recommended you get up?
Actually rise at that time, even if it is dark/you don’t feel like it.
Keep that SCN on schedule by exposing yourself to bright light for 15 minutes to start. When I say bright, I mean BRIGHT (10,000 lux or more).
I personally use this Carex light. When the seasons or the times change, I will set this light on a table we have in our living room. I sit for about 20-25 minutes and then I feel like that is enough for me.
It was so good I bought one for my practice as well.
There’s other models on amazon that aren’t quite as burly, but I’ve personally used this one and found it effective.
Don’t look directly into the light. Just sit the light to the side of you within a foot or so of your vision field.
Do some reading, journaling, or just read the morning news on your phone. It doesn’t matter.
If you aren’t sick of the light being on after the 15 minutes, try for another 5 and see how you feel. Your body will probably know when you are done with the light, but turn it off after no more than 30 minutes at most.
Eat Something
Eat 3-4 ounces of protein within 30 minutes of getting up to get the ‘engine’ started and your blood sugar going.
If you are super ambitious, try to eat at the same times each day. I personally try to eat breakfast, eat a snack at 10am, lunch at 1ish, snack at 3, dinner at 5-6ish, and protein snack before bed.
Take Care of your Sleep
About 2 hours before the bedtime the MEQ recommends; stop looking at blue lights (tvs, phones, tablets, game consoles, etc.) Establish a routine for yourself so that you do the exact same thing every night those two hours. These could be brew and sip a cup of non-caffeinated tea, reading a book, taking a warm shower, then going to bed. This will train your body that you are ready for sleep.
So, that’s it!
By being deliberate with your brain health, sleeping patterns, and meal times will increase your ability to stay on schedule and not be as affected by the time changes.
Thank you for reading and I look forward to hearing from you soon!
References
Hansen, Bertel T.; Sønderskov, Kim M.; Hageman, Ida; Dinesen, Peter T.; Østergaard, Søren D.. Daylight Savings Time Transitions and the Incidence Rate of Unipolar Depressive Episodes. Epidemiology 28(3):p 346-353, May 2017. | DOI: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000000580
Horne JA and Östberg O. A self-assessment questionnaire to determine morningness-eveningness in human circadian rhythms. International Journal of Chronobiology, 1976: 4, 97-100.
Northwestern Medicine. (2021, February). Daylight saving time and your health. Northwestern Medicine. https://www.nm.org/healthbeat/healthy-tips/daylight-savings-time-your-health
Sandhu A, Seth M, Gurm HS (2013). Daylight savings time and myocardial infarction. Open Heart 2014;1:e000019. doi: 10.1136/openhrt-2013-000019.
Wahl, S., Engelhardt, M., Schaupp, P., Lappe, C., & Ivanov, I. V. (2019). The inner clock-Blue light sets the human rhythm. Journal of biophotonics, 12(12), e201900102. https://doi.org/10.1002/jbio.201900102
Christopher C. Hutcheson is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in private practice in Lafayette, Indiana. His practice, Gentle Beacon, specializes in anxiety and depression treatment. You can find his newest book Be Calm: A Guided Journal here.