Getting started in the morning may be more difficult now that you're losing an hour of sleep to Daylight Savings Time.
But there are steps you can take to adjust to the switch.
Dr. Eliza Basora, a pediatric pulmonologist and sleep medicine specialist with Texas Health Plano, talked about this with KERA's Sam Baker.
Baker: I mean, it's only a change of an hour, so why does that matter so much?
Dr. Basora: One hour could be a lot for adults and also more for children because children need to sleep more than adults. And then one hour could make us lose one hour of sleep. So that will make us be more sleepy throughout the day. And then also we can have more behavior changes. We can be a little bit more irritable. We can have difficulty to concentrate, to focus, and have memory issues throughout the days.
Baker: Would this matter so much if Americans didn't have poor sleeping habits to begin with?
Dr. Basora: It's about like 40% of Americans sleep the correct amount of hours. So, if we add that we're going to be losing one extra hour of sleep, then that could create more issues.
Baker: I admit I didn't do any preparation before daylight savings time, so what does a person do to adjust to the time change after it happens?
Dr. Basora: After dinner, you start to dim the lights of the house. You start avoiding electronics, two hours before bedtime, if not one hour as a minimum before bedtime.
And then try to start doing some activities. Like for example, you can do puzzles, you can color, you read. In the evening after dinner, some activities that does not include a screen.
And then you will do your bedtime routine, which includes like taking a shower or a bath, putting on the PJs, brushing your teeth.
And then doing like a little bit of activity like reading or some people pray or sing or even think about the good things that happen throughout the day. Kind of like going those like 10, 15 minutes before you go to sleep and then going to sleep.
So, you can start adjusting your environment and then making sure that your bedtime routine and hygiene are set. So that will make you fall asleep earlier.
Baker: Do you recommend any aids though like, I don't know, melatonin or blackout curtains or shades or diet habits, changes in that or anything?
Dr. Basora: Our brain responds to the stimulus of light and darkness. So, we want everything bright in the morning and then everything dark at night. So, you can start closing the curtains earlier. You can start dimming the lights in the house. And then of course, if you need some type of light to be a little bit more like a dim light or not too bright, if you need to do some activities at night, definitely, you can start doing that.
You can have the blackout curtains because sometimes there's still going to be some brightness outside and then it's bedtime already, and more particularly, for kids that go to bed earlier than adults.
Also, you start having a dinner a little bit earlier. So then you can have like do a meal. And then if you want it to be more like a light snack at bedtime not to have a big dinner close to bedtime. All these things are like cues to help our brain to fall asleep easier.
And then in terms of melatonin, the response of our body in terms of darkness and brightness is related to the melatonin's release of our brain. There are some cases that we need to recommend using melatonin in some patients but I will recommend to talk to your doctor about that.
Baker: Sort of a last resort or something, maybe?
Dr. Basora: Yes, you need to have the appropriate environment to have adequate bedtime routine. And then if after that you still have some struggle to fall asleep, then melatonin could be a resource that you can use strictly by recommendations by your physician because there are different dosages per age, and then there could be different times that we administer melatonin to help our inner clock.
RESOURCES:
Daylight Saving Time: Don't Lose Sleep Over It
Falling back: Health tips to adjust to the time change
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