What happens to our brain and body clock when daylight saving switches over?<\/p>\n
Daylight saving, O\u2019Keeffe says, causes what\u2019s called \u201ccircadian disruption\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone has a body clock in the brain that needs to be synchronised to the sun in order to stay healthy and function well. And of course, when we move our bodies to a different sun time suddenly the internal clock in our brains is not synchronised anymore and that disruption also causes problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
The combination of this with that poor quality of sleep feels a bit like jetlag (without the joy of a holiday).<\/p>\n
\u201cSuddenly we\u2019ve made this one-hour shift … which seems like it\u2019s really small but it\u2019s enough to cause some problems.\u201d<\/p>\n
How long does it take for our body to find a new rhythm?<\/p>\n
The spring transition is the easier one – going into daylight saving time, putting the clock forward an hour \u201cwe just squash an hour out of our day\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happens is that when we go to bed, it\u2019s like 10.30pm. Our body clocks are thinking that it\u2019s earlier than that, so we don\u2019t actually start to feel sleepier until later than we normally would – so we have trouble falling off to sleep.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen when we go to wake up in the morning our natural wake time is actually an hour later.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not such a problem on Sunday, but on Monday morning we might feel robbed of that extra hour when getting up to start the working week.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still thinking that we should be waking an hour later with the old body clock time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we can be frustrated in the evening or at night and tired and groggy in the morning and have short sleep as well. It\u2019s like this combination of feeling really groggy and grotty a couple of days at least.\u201d<\/p>\n
What can I do to help my brain and body ease through it?<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re organised or a sensitive sleeper you could give sleep shifting a go – starting to adjust your body clock gradually in the days leading up to daylight savings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way you would do that was you\u2019d go to bed … 20 minutes earlier on Friday night, 40 minutes earlier on Saturday night and then on Sunday morning, you just wake at your usual time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat helps us sort of assist with our sleep and also make sure that we don\u2019t sleep in too much and muck up our timing of sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n
The other big thing is getting plenty of sunlight on Sunday, throwing the curtains open in the morning to soak up as much as you can.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we can do that we have a better chance of actually synchronising our body clocks with the sun pretty fast.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the flip side, at the end of the day, avoid light, black out your bedroom and try to make it feel like bedtime.<\/p>\n
Does being old\/young\/healthy\/stressed play any part?<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, there are a couple of things,\u201d O\u2019Keeffe says.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the outcomes that we see sometimes with daylight saving transitions is that people who are vulnerable to heart problems can have those problems exacerbated. So there is a little bit of research out there to show that daylight saving transitions can lead to a higher risk of having a heart event of some kind.\u201d<\/p>\n
She says people who are extreme early birds or night owls will also have a harder time picking up a new sleep pattern, rather than the average sleeper.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen a person is an evening type trying to make this transition in the spring, it\u2019s really hard for them in particular to make the shift in their body clock. So it takes them longer basically to get there.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not as easy or as comfortable as somebody who\u2019s sitting in the, like the typical pattern of, of sleep and wake.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cherie Richards helps babies and toddlers get into good sleeping habits. Photo \/ Supplied (RNZ)<\/p>\n
How do I get the kids to sleep when it\u2019s still light outside?<\/p>\n
\u201cThe struggle is when it is lighter in the evenings. or there\u2019s lots of kids in the neighbourhood outside on the street playing,\u201d says baby and toddler sleep consultant Cherie Richards.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all want to be out later and longer and it\u2019s hard to unwind, so the bedtime routine is really gonna be key here.\u201d<\/p>\n
For those who have early rising kids, this daylight savings change is easy – hopefully you get a sleep-in: \u201cYou can just roll with it and we\u2019re going to wake up to a hopefully later start time to the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is definitely the better time shift rather than the other way around.\u201d <\/p>\n
Like the advice for adults, Richards suggests making sure children get lots of light exposure throughout the day, especially in the morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to use light to our advantage. Heading out into the sunshine early in the morning and then again in the early afternoon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen before their bedtime getting their room super dark is really important. So even though it might be light outside, we can still control the internal environment by getting some really good block-out blinds.<\/p>\n
\u201cMake sure that it is pitch black when it comes to bedtime because that\u2019s when we need the melatonin surges to kind of be strong there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Supplied<\/p>\n
Is there anything I can do to make it easier for my kids (and me?)<\/p>\n
If you have a child who is sensitive and a bit more what Richards calls \u201chigh needs\u201d when it comes to sleep there\u2019s some groundwork you can do to be ready for Sunday – taking a more \u201cproactive approach\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat that would look like is on, you know, Monday and Tuesday say we had all of their nap and feed times 15 minutes earlier … and their bedtime\u2019s going to slowly shift earlier too, so 15 minutes earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo if they\u2019re always in bed at 7, we\u2019re popping them down at 6.45. Then say Wednesday and Thursday, you do it again, but it\u2019s 30 minutes earlier.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you can do it gradually… if you have more sensitive-prone kids it can really make a difference.\u201d<\/p>\n
Remember for babies who are over 3 months old and on a routine you have to shift their feed times as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like a jolt to their whole rhythm. So, even though we\u2019re like, oh, it\u2019s only one hour, one hour is a heck of a lot at that age.\u201d<\/p>\n
But newborns, she says, you don\u2019t need to worry about, they are none the wiser.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m already a really bad sleeper, what\u2019s going to happen to me?<\/p>\n
Anitha Patel, an insomnia and sleep care specialist, points out: \u201cFor some people who are already kind of having insomnia issues, it can obviously trigger quite a bit if you\u2019re already not sleeping too well.<\/p>\n
For these people, Patel really encourages some homework before daylight savings on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we prep and we kind of develop what we call a sleep bank … it shouldn\u2019t have so much of an effect.\u201d<\/p>\n
She also suggests easing into Monday morning if you know you\u2019re susceptible to poor sleep. Any important meetings or tasks, things that require focus or attention, shove them to the end of the week.<\/p>\n
\u201cEase into the whole thing,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
And keep your sleep hygiene up to scratch – consistent wake-up times, trying not to sleep in on the weekend, sleeping away from your devices.<\/p>\n
If you really need to, you could take a power nap, but time it right.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to be really careful about what time you\u2019re doing it and you don\u2019t want to have it for too long.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s about 20 or 30 [minutes] – in the earlier day or earlier part of the afternoon, not too close to your bedtime – that is something that\u2019s going to build up your sleep bank.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo you\u2019re not going to have so much of a deficit when you actually have daylight savings.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What happens to our brain and body clock when daylight saving switches over? Daylight saving, O\u2019Keeffe says, causes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[74,7800,69252,26225,42,221,43,103127,915,5258,2863,223,3765,61,40,38,41,39,1959],"class_list":{"0":"post-363939","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-after","9":"tag-body","10":"tag-clock","11":"tag-daylight","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-how","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-reset","16":"tag-saving","17":"tag-shift","18":"tag-sleep","19":"tag-the","20":"tag-tips","21":"tag-to","22":"tag-top-news","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topnews","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-your"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}