Edhat Staff
Getting up an hour earlier than expected is rough, but here are some tips to survive Daylight Saving Time (DST).
It might just be one hour of sleep, but for many, those are 60 precious minutes of precious snoozing that can make a Monday somewhat tolerable.
At 2:00 a.m. Sunday, everyone’s clocks skipped an hour and went right to 3:00 a.m. Well, everyone except Hawaii, Arizona, Guam, Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Virgin Islands since those areas do not observe DST.
When nightly sleep gets messed up, it can cause just about anyone to feel irritable, sleepy, and/or hungry. To avoid the adult temper tantrums, try these tips to get your body’s schedule back on track.
1. Soak Up the Sun
When the rain clouds clear from our recent storm, try walking outside or sitting near an open window where the sun can reach you. Light exposure is supposed to help regulate our internal clocks and sleep-wake cycle. The sooner you get near the sun, the more alert you’ll feel early in the day and hopefully more sleepy by nightfall.
2. Unplug Before Bed
It’s no secret that computer and television screens can affect sleep. The blue and white lights cause a part of our brain to react in a way that’s not conducive to sleepy time. Shutting off electronics can let your brain relax and slow down.
3. Exercise
This seems to be the answer to just about everything, but it’s supposed to work. Especially if you keep your routine to the same time frame.
4. Avoid the Booze
Boo, no fun. Even though a glass of wine or two may make you feel more sleepy, it can actually prevent you from achieving that deep sleep your body is craving. Don’t worry, this is just for the next few days while your body adjusts.
5. Stick to Your Schedule
This is boring but scientists say it works. So… try not to sleep in, keep getting up at the same time and going to bed at the same time, and apparently within a few days to a week, you’ll be back to feeling normal again.
Good luck edhatters and we’ll see you bright and early at the coffee shop on Monday morning.
Am I the only one who doesn’t have any problem with the biannual time changes? My only complaint is that when we go back to Standard Time I get hungry an hour earlier. I can’t believe that Florida wants to keep Daylight Saving Time year-round. If they did that, Florida would be the only state in the union on DST during the winter.
Just when it’s starting to get light in the morning, we switch. I’d rather have the morning bright than the longer evening. Get rid of this clock changing stuff.
What is to survive? This is the best day of the year! Woo hoo time change. I am HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY
It’s a great great day!!! Now please keep the clocks on this time as there is nothing worse then getting off work at 5pm in the dark…
I can’t believe one little old hour can cause so much stress.
Tips to survive Daylight savings, 1 Start drinking earlier than normal, 2 pass out earlier than normal 3 Sleep later than normal 4 repeat for several days , in a week you wont know the difference. Your Welcome
Melatonin will have fewer undesirable side effects but probably won’t be as fun.
Does anybody else who takes melatonin ever have really weird dreams, especially in the very early morning hours?
The other option not mentioned, is to retire. Then it doesn’t really matter what time you get up, or what time you go to bed….
The crazy dreams were the best part of melatonin
The crazy dreams were the best part of melatonin
Tried and true method for many things.
If you need tips to deal with a one hour time change, you’ve got bigger problems…
Us Californians voted for all year round PDST and it passed. But it is up to Congress to decide on that. I guess that is on the very bottom of their “to do list”. So what happened to the vote of “the people”?
I love Daylight Saving Time, including the fact that it’s only part of the year. Here’s why:
If we completely get rid of Daylight Saving Time, from May 10 – July 17 the sun would rise before 5:00am. No thank you. Also, the sun would never set later than 7:15pm at any point during the year. We’d lose those warm summer nights where the sun stays out past 8:00pm.
On the other hand, if we stay on Daylight Saving Time year-round, from Dec 18 – Jan 27 the sun would not rise until after 8:00am.
Didn’t California vote to keep DST all year?
Great tips. Santa Barbara living definitely makes it easier to deal with the change. I personally love the extra daylight at the end of the day to get down to the beach for a sunset, or more time to sail… no one goes sailing at 6am:) Sorry early risers.
Eliminate DST and return to year round standard time. It matches human bio-rythms established over eons. Also we should eliminate the dollar bill and go to dollar coins only but that’s another story for another time.
The Uniform Time Act allows states to either follow the spring/fall DST switch or stay on standard time all year, but does not allow states to be on DST all year. That’s been the law since 1966, and I don’t think that not wanting to do CA any favors has anything to do with the fact that they haven’t changed it. In ADDITION, it is up to “us”, where “us” is the CA legislature, to pass the bill that would put CA on permanent DST with fed permission, and to urge the fedgov to give us that permission.
California passed Prop 7, which ALLOWS the legislature to make DST permanent, on a 2/3 vote. That vote hasn’t happened.
“We may have lost an hour today, but we gained 24 on February 29, so we’re still up 23 for the year. So go back to sleeep.” — Pat Sajak on Twitter.
Statistically significant increase in heart attacks and strokes on this time change in Spring. May be important to those people?
Not up to us, it is up to the feds to allow us with their benevolent oversight. And the feds don’t want to do us any favors right now. Maybe on November 5 if things go well?