Tag: sleep tips

The end of daylight saving time is nearly here.

Soon, South Florida will get an extra hour of sleep as we “fall back” and set our clocks and watches behind one hour.

How could the end of daylight saving time affect your health? And how long will it take for your body to adjust to the time change?

Here’s what to know, including tips from sleep experts:

When does daylight saving time end?

Daylight saving time ends across most of the United States on the first Sunday of November, according to Time and Date, an online world clock.

At 2 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 2, clocks in Florida and other states will move back by one hour, give you an extra hour of sleep that night.

Sunset will occur one hour earlier once the time shift takes place.

We’ll then see less daylight in the evenings and more light in the mornings.

How early will it start getting dark in Florida?

After daylight saving time ends on Nov. 2, sunrise will be 6:30 a.m. and sunset will be at 5:38 p.m. in Miami, according to Time and Date.

The shortest day of the year will be on Sunday, Dec. 21, the winter solstice.

The sun will rise at 7:03 a.m. and set at 5:35 p.m. in Miami on the winter solstice.

Is daylight saving time bad for my health?

Observing daylight saving time — moving clocks forward an hour in the spring and “falling back” an hour in autumn — is “acutely bad for our health,” according to Stanford Medicine researchers.

The biannual time shift tends to affect peoples’ circadian rhythms — the body’s 24-hour clock — which regulate several physiological processes.

When circadian cycles get out of sync, a range of poor health outcomes can occur, according to Stanford Medicine.

“The more light exposure you get at the wrong times, the weaker the circadian clock,” Jamie Zeitzer, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford Medicine, wrote in a Sept. 15 article. “All of these things that are downstream — for example, your immune system, your energy — don’t match up quite as well.”

How could daylight saving time affect my sleep?

Dr. Michael Breus, clinical sleep specialist and founder of SleepDoctor.com, compared the twice-annual time shifts to jet lag.

He said the start of daylight saving time in the spring can impact your cognitive, emotional and physical well-being.

The shift forward has been linked to a jump in fatal traffic crashes and heart attacks, according to Stanford Medicine.

The end of daylight saving time can also disrupt your body’s natural rhythms, especially if you’re already sleep-deprived, Breus said.

When you get an extra hour of rest, “Your body then wants to stay in sleep — something that we call sleep inertia,” Breus said. “This is the body wanting to stay in a deeper stage of sleep, to become more nourished, and it just kind of continues to want that sleep process to occur.”

How long will it take to adjust to time shift?

How quickly you adapt to the time shift depends on who you are, according to Breus.

Babies and older adults tend to struggle the most to adapt to the time change.

Infants are more sensitive to changes in light and routine in general, he explained, while seniors are more vulnerable to shifts in sunshine because their eyes are less adept at taking in light.

Most people, however, will need about a day to transition to clocks falling back an hour, Breus said, the same amount of time you’d need to adjust to a new time zone when traveling.

When clocks fall back on Sunday, Nov. 2, most people in Florida should feel back to normal by the next day.

“It should not have a tremendous effect past a day, maybe two days,” Breus told The Sacramento Bee. “When you’re sleep-deprived, that’s when we start to see bigger and bigger effects. But generally speaking, (the effect) should wear off … within a day to two.”

See best ways to prepare for fall time change

You can more easily adapt to the end of daylight saving time by making adjustments to sleep routines and light exposure, according to Breus.

Following the fall time change, he suggested wearing sunglasses in the morning to adjust to the increased daylight in the early hours of the day.

In the evening, he said, you should take a 30-minute walk after dinner or use a bright light therapy device to help ease your body’s transition.

You should also limit caffeine use around the time change since it can interfere with your sleep, according to Dr. Charles Czeisler, a Mass General Brigham sleep medicine specialist.

Czeisler recommended not consuming caffeine after 2 or 3 p.m. since the substance can stay in the body for up to 10 hours.

“You might want to eat an hour earlier than you usually would for a few days,” Czeisler said.

As for adjusting your sleep routine, Breus advised moving up your bedtime by 15 minutes each day in the lead-up to Sunday, Nov. 2, “to make the transition a little bit easier.”

“You really do want to maintain consistent sleep habits,” he said. “So sticking to regular sleep and wake times, even on the weekends with this transition … is going to be important.”