Tips for adjusting to daylight saving time

You're not daylight saving time is coming up this weekend. We lose an hour of sleep in the spring and it can cause some issues in our sleep patterns, of course, and it could linger for a couple of days, even weeks you might be feeling the effects of it. So how can we help make the adjustment a little bit smoother? Dr. Michael Howell is a sleep medicine physician with the U of M. Been here on the show before, back with some advice as we kind of gear for, you know, what's to come Sunday night? Saturday, Saturday night into Sunday morning, right? Okay, just check it. The big picture here, we were talking about this. When you're younger, I remember we would have these conversations like, why do people complain about it so much? Does the loss of sleep get worse as you get older or are we just whining about it more? What's happening? What's happening to us? There's a combination of both.

You probably also weren't on air early. True. It's the challenges of work and family and education. But also, if you have any other sleep issue going on. So for most people, Shane, as you were talking about, most people this just really isn't that big of an issue. But if you have an untreated sleep disorder, it can be a real challenge. Or kids who then are totally off the clock.

What's going on here? So why is the hour jarring to people? Not everyone, but you know. Right. So it's more than just a loss of an hour of sleep. And that is something in and of itself. But it's the shift in our body's 24 hour clock, our circadian rhythm. Our bodies have natural times when we would like to fall asleep, when we'd like to wake up, when we can concentrate, when we can perform athletically best. And to just slightly tweak that a little bit for, you know, five million people in the state of Minnesota, that's going to, that's going to, we're going to notice the consequences of that.

So, I mean, can we do anything about it? To lessen the tilt? Sure. Or lessen the impact of the tilt? Sure, it's Thursday. So we have Saturday, Friday and Saturday. Just wake up and get extra light in the morning for about 15 to 20 minutes right when you're getting up. So if you, if you do, if we do have sun, I don't know. It's not looking great, yeah. Or a light from a light box.

These are the same lights that are used for people with seasonal affective disorder. A 10,000 lux light box, they are bright. And if you get that, that'll help adjust your rhythm. So start that like now. Okay. Especially if this is a challenge for you. And just 15 to 20 minutes.

That's it. That's not too bad. We know where there's been a lot of talk. Lawmakers, Capitol Hill right now, they're talking about putting some renewed focus on getting rid of daylight saving. I feel like we talk about this every year and nothing happens. Would there be benefits from keeping the clocks consistent year-round? I'm a fan. Okay.

Yes, I would just change it to one and leave it there. If you ask my preference, I would keep it on standard time. That's where we are right now. Okay. The downside is less sunlight in the evening. Students of the support for this are coming from southern states who really don't have much of a problem with darkness in the winter time in the morning. But I would personally just like to get rid of the switching altogether and I will take as a compromise just switching to daylight saving permanently.

Okay. Shane had mentioned obviously you add kids into the mix and it's not just you maybe struggling with this. What can we do to prepare the kids? Or is there anything that we can do? We just kind of have to suck it up and wait for the couple weeks where they figure it out. Right. This is the most challenging for adolescents and teenagers and those who have a bit of a circadian delay. Someone who has a little bit of a tendency towards a night owl. Those are the individuals who struggle the most.

So bright light in the morning and if appropriate a little bit of melatonin is actually very reasonable to help address with this. Just a milligram, that's all an hour or so before bedtime. And that's just during this transition or? If we're, that's the strategy we use for people who are just chronically struggling with being night owls. Someone who have given the opportunity would fall asleep at three in the morning and wake up at noon like a lot of teenagers we may know. That can be quite helpful for those individuals. But for most people with this shift just for a few days. Okay.

And then how about bedtime routines? What do you think is the biggest mistake? Is it looking at our phones with that light or is there other things that we should be aware of? Do no harm. Avoid stimulants, caffeine, energy drinks, alcohol, bright light. If you do those things you'll probably be fine. Are there any foods that we should, I mean you've mentioned the caffeine. Are there any foods that could potentially impact our ability to fall asleep or stay asleep? Yeah, as a general rule you just want to avoid particularly in the evening high glycemic index foods. So anything with a large amount of carbs that's going to cause your blood sugar to go up followed by an insulin spike and then you're going to get hungry again. You want to avoid that.

So protein enriched foods like a good protein smoothie that's a great thing to have in the evening. Okay this is a tricky question. I've wondered this before. If you eat a lot of chocolate at night you know you have a big chocolate, like chocolate has caffeine. But is that enough to keep you awake? If you have a little bit of a cacao like the, like the arit. Like more of a dark, yeah like a finer chocolate. In moderation of course.

I think that's quite reasonable. Okay, it's not. I've wondered this because there's nights that I didn't sleep and I'm like oh I ate chocolate ice cream. Like did I ruin it by eating chocolate? Personally I have a chocolate oatmeal, a cacao oatmeal banana peanut butter smoothie with protein powder in it in the evening. That sounds really good. At night in the, oh okay. 8 o'clock at night.

Yeah that's kind of late. I like that. Okay. Past her bedtime. I mean he's a sleep expert. We should do what he does, right? Do as Dr. Michael does.

I'm all for smoothies. Alright, well we appreciate it. Thanks for the knowledge and the insight and good luck to everybody. Good luck with your teenagers too on the shift. We know it's hard for them.

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