Thank you, Benjamin Franklin. He’s the one who’s ultimately responsible for the extra hour of sleep most Americans will get when we “fall back” at 2 a.m. November 3 this year. (Franklin suggested the idea in 1784 as a way to save candles during winter mornings and nights. The practice became official in the U.S. in 1966 when Congress passed the Uniform Time Act. Their intention was the same–to save energy.) But how does losing and gaining sleep involuntarily twice a year really affect us? And even if they don’t have to get up to go to work, is it actually harder on older people?
“Winston Churchill once described Daylight Saving Time like this: ‘An extra yawn one morning in the springtime, an extra snooze one night in the autumn…We borrow an hour one night in April; we pay it back with golden interest five months later,’” Anthony Komaroff, M.D., executive editor of the Harvard Health Letter wrote in his article, “Daylight Saving Time ‘fall back’ doesn’t equal sleep gain.”
Bad tempered grumpy old man in bed
“That’s an overly optimistic view,” he added “In reality, many people don’t, or can’t, take advantage of this weekend’s extra hour of sleep. And the resulting shift in the body’s daily sleep-wake cycle can disrupt sleep for several days.”
Komaroff went on to explain that researchers the world over have tried, with mixed results, to determine if losing or gaining an hour of sleep because of Daylight Saving Time make any difference in health. “Michigan researchers, writing in the American Journal of Cardiology, showed a small increase in heart attacks on the first day (Sunday) of the spring transition to Daylight Saving Time, when we ‘lose’ an hour of sleep,” he wrote. “This echoed a Swedish study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showing a small increase in heart attacks after the start of Daylight Saving Time and a small decrease at its end.”
The reality is that instead of getting more sleep on the first Sunday in November, many people wake up earlier, have difficulty falling asleep and even wake up during the night. “Each of us experiences predictable physical, mental and behavioral changes during the course of a day,” Komaroff wrote. “These are called circadian rhythms. The daily cycle of light and dark keep them on a 24-hour cycle. Sleep is a component of circadian rhythms. It is affected by outside influences, like light or Daylight Saving time. It can also affect the body’s other rhythms.”
According to the Better Sleep Council (BSC), a nonprofit organization dedicated to sharing information about the relationships between sleep, good health and quality of life, there are some ways Americans can better adjust to the forthcoming time change. And you can start working on them now as you carve your jack-‘o-lanterns for Thursday:
- Boost your mood with pumpkin seeds: Pumpkin seeds are high in tryptophan and magnesium, which increases serotonin levels (lowering stress) and helps to put you in a better mood, which may lead to better sleep.
- Establish a healthy bedtime routine: Having a consistent, relaxing, and reproducible bedtime routine will help transition your mind and body from awake to sleep. Try reading a book or coloring to unwind before slumber.
- Get some bright light or sunlight in the morning: Exposure to natural light sets the body clock and helps boost mood and energy. Be sure to open the curtains as soon as you wake up and, if possible, go for an a.m. walk. After sunset, do the opposite and dim the indoor lights to get your body back on track.
- Leave the windows closed: Health experts advise against opening windows at night because pollen and other allergens can leave you with a stuffy nose and watery eyes in the morning.
- Change pajamas every night: A pair of pajamas gets dirty fast. Consider changing your nightwear every single day.
- Shy away from long naps: longer daytime naps could make it harder for you to get a full night’s sleep. Napping re-cues the body’s drive to sleep, so you won’t be as tired at night as you need to be if you’ve taken that nap.
- Stick to a media curfew: No matter where you are, be sure to maintain your media curfew by turning off electronic devices at least one hour before you plan on going to bed. The blue light emitted from the screen suppresses your body’s production of the hormone melatonin, making it more difficult for you to fall asleep.
- Have a cool head and warm feet: A bedroom should have a temperature between 65 and 67 degrees for comfortable sleeping.
Terry Cralle, registered nurse and certified sleep educator with the BSC said turning our clocks backward has a very real effect on seniors and their sleep.
“Several things can make the fall time change challenging in seniors, one of which is advanced sleep phase syndrome, or ASPS,” Cralle said in an interview. “ASPS is a circadian rhythm disorder that is more prevalent among older adults.”
According to the sleep health information site, Tuck.com, advanced sleep-wake phase disorder (also called advanced sleep-phase syndrome) involves a shift in the circadian rhythm that leads to early bedtimes and arousals. People with the disorder experience a strong, sometimes irresistible urge to fall asleep in the evening, generally between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m., and wake too early in the morning, generally between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m.
Disrupting our circadian patterns leads to fatigue, which makes staying awake until bedtime even more difficult. So the cycle repeats itself.
“Like other circadian rhythm sleep-wake disorders, advanced sleep-wake phase disorder is a neurological disorder with no known cause,” Tuck reports. “Because advanced sleep-wake phase disorder is more common in older adults, researchers believe that age-related changes to hormone levels are involved.”
The disorder is treated with a “progressive phase delay,” which uses light therapy and behavioral changes to help people stay awake in the evening and fall asleep at an appropriate time at night. The idea is that it will increase the odds of sleeping later in the morning.
Cralle said though seniors may not be getting up to go to a job, and the way they sleep might be affected by age-related conditions, their sleep requirements don’t change. “Changes in sleep patterns occur with aging, but sleep needs don’t decline with age,” she said. “However, the prevalence of sleep disorders tends to increase with age. Sufficient, restorative sleep is vitally essential to physical and psychological health and quality of life and should remain a high priority in the 60 and over crowd.”
Cralle recommends seeing a sleep specialist for sleep problems or any sign of a sleep disorder. “Persistent sleep problems should not be considered an inevitable part of aging and are often successfully treated and managed by a sleep specialist,” she said. “In fact, sleep should be viewed as a ‘vital sign’ and addressed at every healthcare provider encounter.”
“We should view sleep as something that’s sacred,” Dr. Daniel Barone, neurologist and sleep medicine expert at the Center for Sleep Medicine at New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York City told Healthday reporter, E.j. Mundell. “Our bodies are designed to get seven to nine hours…people shouldn’t expect that the extra hour of sleep they’ll get on Sunday will erase any accumulated ‘sleep debt,’ We as a society sleep one hour less than we did 100 years ago, so we are still ‘behind the clock’ so to speak when it comes to being sleep-deprived.’”
Barone added that the because the body manufactures vitamin D from the sun’s action on our skin, emotions and mood can be affected, and with some people, substantially. “…this can even mean the onset of a kind of depression known as seasonal affective disorder (SAD),” he said.
But there are other ways sleep disturbances of any kind can affect us. In her article, “5 Weird Effects of Daylight Saving Time,” Live Science reporter, Laura Poppick outlined the strange ways coming in and out of Daylight Saving Time can take a toll on the human body:
1. Car Accidents – Though the jury is still out on this one, it is true that subtle changes in sleep patterns and circadian rhythms can alter human alertness and, in some cases, might increase the risk of potentially fatal car accidents. But Poppick noted a “2010 Journal of Environmental Public Health study that analyzed the number of traffic accidents in Finland one week before and one week after transitions into and out of daylight saving time from 1981 through 2006 found no significant change in the number of accidents during this time period. Another 2010 study published in the Journal of Safety Research found that daylight saving time can actually result in fewer crashes by increasing visibility for drivers in the morning.”
2. Increased workplace injuries – People who work at more physically taxing jobs, such as miners, have been shown to experience more workplace injuries at the onset of daylight saving time in the spring. The effect has not been detected at the end of daylight saving time in the fall, Poppick reported.
3. More heart attacks – Poppik reported that some studies have shown an increase in the rate of heart attacks during the first three weekdays following springtime daylight saving time increased, though, as with workplace injuries, the effect did not arise at the end of daylight saving time in the fall.
“In the 2008 New England Journal of Medicine article that described this pattern, the researchers attributed the small surge in heart attacks in the springtime to changes in people’s sleep patterns,” Poppick wrote. “Lack of sleep can release stress hormones that increase inflammation, which can cause more severe complications in people already at risk of having a heart attack.”
4. Longer cyberloafing – It’s a slang word for surfing the Internet during work hours. And while it may not be as serious as other affects, it can cost companies thousands of dollars in unproductive wages. A 2012 Journal of Applied Psychology study found that the incidence of cyberloafing significantly increased in more than 200 metropolitan U.S. regions during the first Monday after daylight saving time in the spring, compared with the Mondays directly before and one week after the transition, Poppick reported.
5. Increased cluster headaches – When circadian rhythms get thrown out of whack, even by just an hour during, the human body notices the difference. “For some people, the effects of this change can set off debilitating chronic pain,” Poppick reported. “Cluster headaches, for example — or headaches that cluster within one side of a person’s head and can cause excruciating pain for days or weeks at a time — seem to be triggered by changes in circadian rhythms, including during the transitions in and out of daylight saving…”