The Time Change Is About to Ruin Your Sleep. Try These 3 Tips to Reset Your Internal Clock

The end of the DST is drawing near, which means that the days are getting shorter and the nights are longer. According to a study by the Sleep Doctor, 25% of people said that the time change affects the way they sleep. If you’ve had trouble falling asleep or staying asleep during your shift, here are a few ways to get your circadian rhythm — the body’s internal alarm clock — back on track.

Read more: 7 Best Foods for Better Sleep

How to reset your body clock

To promote healthy sleep hygiene and prevent the effects of sleep loss after daylight savings time, consider following these tips.

1. Do not adjust your wake-up time immediately after the time change. After a few days to a week, your body will adjust to the new time. Instead, consider taking a short 20-minute nap in the afternoon to help give you more energy. Long sleepHowever, it may leave you feeling drowsy.

2. Avoid alcohol, caffeine and junk food before bed. These things cause sleep disturbances that keep you from getting the seven to nine hours of quality sleep you need to maintain physical and mental health.

3. If you wake up early, go out early to get some light. Light helps you stay alert during the day, and it will slow down your body’s production melatonincausing drowsiness. You can also consider a sunrise alarm clock. It leaves natural light in your room to gently wake you up in the morning like sunlight. It is very useful now as the sun rises later.

How daylight saving time affects your body

Your circadian rhythm is your body’s internal clock, which follows a 24-hour cycle. It plays an important role in your control sleep-wake cycleand is greatly influenced by cues from light and darkness. When daylight saving time kicks in, it can slow down your circadian rhythm, making you feel sleepy in the morning, and more energetic in the evening as the sun stays up later.

If you’ve traveled to a place with a different time zone than you’re used to, you may have experienced a similar disruption to your circadian rhythm that we call jet lag. For example, if you travel from New York to California where there is a three hour time difference, 9pm feels like midnight to your body, and you feel sleepier than usual.

At first glance, a small change in your routine may not seem like much. However, studies have shown that DST-induced disruptions can have a significant impact on your sleep hygiene and overall health if you’re not careful.

The effects of daylight saving time

The average person will sleep about 40 minutes less on the Monday following the start of DST, according to some research. In addition to feeling sleepy, experts have mentioned (in extreme cases) an increase in accidents at work, heart attacks, mood swings and even traffic accidents after switching from normal time (November to March) to daylight saving time. Poor sleep quality and changes in our sleep-wake cycle seem to be factors behind these events, and are a major argument for experts who want to end DST.

Read more: Why Your Internal Clock Keeps You Up at Night

Proposed benefits of daylight saving

On the other side of the coin, there has been research that points to the benefits of observing DST. Although traffic deaths appear to increase the day after the switch from standard time to DST, they may decrease over time, possibly in part due to longer daylight hours. It seems that crime is also decreasing for this reason, because it is less likely to happen during the day.

Apart from direct human health effects, DST also promotes less energy consumption. Another 2008 study by the Department of Energy found that four additional weeks of daylight saving time saved 1.3 billion kilowatt hours, equivalent to the amount of energy used by 100,000 households annually.

As experts continue to examine the benefits and drawbacks of daylight saving time and whether we should be watching it, there are things you can do to combat its negative effects in the meantime.