Advice for the end of Daylight Saving Time

Daylight saving time officially ends next Sunday, November 1st, and while an extra hour of sleep sounds really good on paper, shifting the clocks can wreak havoc on your body's internal circadian rhythm. Joining us live to help us prepare for falling back is Kaiser Permanente pediatrician Dr. Azadeh Sami. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you for having me, Maureen. So why does shifting the clock by just one hour cause such a noticeable disruption to our bodies? Well, you know, it has a lot of effects on our bodies. I mean, gaining an hour sounds like a luxury, but it completely disrupts our internal biological clocks. So for adults, it triggers this early waking and heavy daytime brain fog. And for kids, it hits even harder, just leaving them exhausted, irritable, and completely out of sync. I mean, we've all seen this. So it proves that just a minor shift with the clock on the wall is just such a major disruption to the body. And Dita, you mentioned kids. I'm a mom, and I know that it was such a disruption to our household. How do you suggest that parents sort of get their kids back into a rhythm during this daylight saving time when they're having to go to bed an hour earlier? What can you do step by step to get the kids to a better place so they're not so disrupted by the shift? That's a great question. So if you want to protect your family's sleep, just remember two words, routine and gradual. So first, keep the regular sleep and wake schedules across the board. Second, you ease the kids into it. So one way to do this, or actually the best way to do this, would be to shift their bedtime by just by about 10 or 15 minutes later each night in the days leading up to the change. And this is because we're falling back and gaining an hour, so you actually want to move the bedtime later each night. So, for example, if their normal bedtime is 8 o'clock, you want to push it to 8.15, then 8.30, and so on. So this slowly, what it does is it stretches their internal clock so they don't end up waking up the whole house at 5 a.m. on a Sunday morning. It's a tiny tweak that just saves you from a massive headache later. Are there any visual cues that people can use to also help make that happen? So visual cues as far as light exposure, that's probably the best way. So I would say if you want to dodge that time change brain fog, you need to manage your light exposure. So our bodies at night, we want darkness, and in the morning, we want sun. So keep the afternoon coffee away. You want to ditch the phones an hour before bed and sleep in a cool, dark room. Then the first thing in the morning, you step outside, open the blinds, and just allow that natural morning light to come in, and that would instantly flip the switch to reset your biological clock. Talking about adults, what are some of the biggest mistakes that adults make on this time change weekend? Because for me, I'm thinking, look, I get a nice hour of sleep. I'm just going to take it. But that might not always be the best thing, is it? Exactly. So when you feel that time change grogginess, the temptation, like you said, is to sleep in or take a long afternoon nap. But you don't want to fall into that sleep trap because overcompensating actually backfires. What it does is it resets your clock in the wrong direction. And it actually makes it twice as hard to get back on a consistent schedule. I mean, I think we've all been there. So stick to your routine, even if you're tired. Can your diet make a difference here? Anything you can eat, can that help make the change a little less noticeable or less jarring, if you will? As far as dietary changes, I would say definitely avoid caffeine in the afternoon, like we mentioned. Continue with a well-rounded diet. Try to avoid sugars, you know, close to bedtime. I know we all love that, you know, that dinnertime dessert, but try to hold off on that. and try to consume most of your, you know, calories during the day, and that should help. I know that one thing that people are wanting to know is, you know, how does that, the whole sort of morning sunlight exposure regulating blue screen light, how does that help reset your melatonin levels faster after this time change? Because that's how, so our bodies release this, you know, we naturally release melatonin, and that melatonin is, what it does is it cues your body into sleep, And that sunlight actually suppresses melatonin. And so the same thing goes for screen time, which is why we advise people to avoid screen time an hour before bed. And so that's how that natural sunlight, you know, how it plays with the melatonin. All right. All great tips. This is Kaiser Permanente medical expert Dr. Azadeh Sami with some daylight saving time tips to help you get back into it all smoothly this weekend. Thank you so much for the tips. We appreciate you.