Hi ,
This last weekend, we got an additional hour. Sixty added minutes, courtesy of the calendar.
So how is everybody feeling? Rested? Ready? Radiant?
If you’re like most people, probably not. An additional hour sounds good on paper. But for our brains and bodies, it presents some unwelcome challenges.
Here’s what usually happens. You go to bed at your normal time. Your body clock, which runs on light and not on your smartphone, never got the memo. So it wakes you at what it thinks is 6:00, and the clock insists it’s 5:00. Suddenly you’re up in the dark, staring at a microwave clock that you forgot how to change.
It turns out the additional hour is more of a theory than a gift. In a large Canadian study of middle-aged and older adults, people interviewed the week after the “fall back” change reported more trouble falling and staying asleep, and more daytime sleepiness, than people interviewed the week before. The body needs a few days, sometimes a couple of weeks, to catch up.
Then there’s the dark. Suddenly it’s night at 5:00 in the afternoon, and every part of you thinks it’s bedtime and you haven’t even eaten dinner yet.
Researchers in Denmark found more people seeking hospital care for low mood in the weeks after the switch to standard time. Less evening light plus a body clock that’s out of step. It makes sense.
Three small things help most people:
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Go outside in the morning. Light is the main signal that tells your body clock what time it is.
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Keep your wake-up time steady, even when sleeping in is tempting.
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Dim the lights in the last hour before bed, so your body gets the message that the day is winding down.
And if you’re driving at dusk like I do on my commute home, give pedestrians, cyclists, and your fellow drivers more room. The evenings are getting dark quickly, and you might be sharing the road with someone who’s sleep deprived.
None of this is complicated. But a well-planned evening wind-down is more important than you might think. We go from a bright screen straight to a dark pillow and expect our minds to follow. An hour more or less might not seem like a big change. But it can really mess with our mood and sleep.
And if you want to take a more proactive approach to helping your body and brain adjust to time changes - or you’re one of the many people in the world who suffer from poor sleep - we’ve got just the thing.
Our Sleep Suite collection is jam-packed with Holosync-powered audio soundtracks to help you experience the deepest and most restorative sleep ever! This is the most comprehensive sleep-improving package we’ve ever offered, and you can learn more about it right here.
And before I go, I’ve gotta ask… Do you have any tips for getting good sleep? I’m keeping a list of them and might pick some of my favorites to share with you in an upcoming JCI!
Wishing you a well-rested week, whatever the clock says.
Until next time, this is me, Just Checking In!
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