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| Photo by Aleksander Nakic/E+/Getty Images |
When the phrase turning back the clock is applied to the antiaging
benefits of a new skincare routine, there is very little downside. But the
way literally turning back the clock adjusting your schedule by
just an hour every autumn affects your body is less clear cut. The main
question: Does the extra 60 minutes you scored this weekend give your health a
boost — or hurt it?
The majority of studies focus on the
downsides of springing forward in March (and losing an hour of sleep), with
effects ranging from an increase in cyberloafing
(that is, surfing the Web when you should be working) to an uptick
in suicides among men. The autumn change is usually the more benign
one, said Michael Grandner, a instructor in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the Center
for Sleep and Circadian Neurobiology. Most people’s internal rhythms aren’t
exactly 24 hours they’re closer to maybe 24.5 hours. So adding time to the
day is really easy for the body to do.
But the fall transition — typically
associated with one thing —more sleep! — still throws off your internal body
clock, which means it can affect your health, said Dr. Alfred Lewy, director of
the Sleep and Mood Disorders Laboratory at Oregon Health & Science
University. Think about
it: “We try to force our sleep-wake cycle into a new time, but our body rhythms
are still stuck on the old time,” he said.
Why can’t our bodies cope with a simple
60-minute shift? “You would think that a one-hour change would be easy to
adjust to — it’s known that flying one hour east or west doesn’t produce jet
lag,” Lewy told Yahoo Health. Problem is, with the autumn change, you’re trying
to shift your body clock later, while morning sunlight is invading earlier.
“The new sunlight-dark cycle is working against the direction of change we need
to make,” he said. And that means the effects of daylight saving time — and the
return to standard time in the fall — extend far beyond the time you see on
your iPhone (or your electric bill).
1. Your mood may improve
As the weather gets colder, our moods
tend to get icier. Blame it on the dark mornings associated with the changing
seasons: “You’re waking up before dawn,” said Lewy. “That seems to trigger
winter depression in vulnerable people.” But in the weeks following the fall
time change, your wake time may actually sync with the sunrise, giving your
mood a boost — albeit temporarily. “Morning light is one of the most powerful
things you can [expose yourself to] in order to stave off winter blues,”
Grandner said. That means people with cold-weather depression are enjoying
“a little bit of a respite right now,” Lewy said. “The time change kind of
stops the process for a few weeks, because we go back to waking up into
sunlight.”
2. Your risk of being in a car accident may increase
You know driving while drowsy is risky
— but the midnight hour isn’t the only time the threat of an accident may loom
large. The week after daylight saving time comes to an end — that’s now! —
there’s a 7 percent increase in car crashes, a Texas
A&M University study found. The uptick in morning traffic
accidents is even greater: 14 percent. Why the surge in roadway chaos? “Just
like when you have jet lag, your performance falls. Your cognitive abilities
decrease,” explained Lewy. “Even though you’re not [necessarily] sleep
deprived, your rhythms aren’t adjusted, and that produces deficits in performance.”
Driving home in the dark may be to
blame for accidents in the evening. “It’s getting dark an hour earlier, but
your social schedule isn’t changing,” Grandner told Yahoo Health. “That might
make us a little more tired at the end of the day.” Plus, as the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration warns, it may take some time to
adjust to low-light driving, when you’re used to commuting home in broad
daylight.
3. The quality of your sleep may take a
hit
Think the autumn time change equals an
extra hour of sleep? Maybe not. There’s little evidence that people take
advantage of those 60 minutes of additional shuteye time — in fact, the sudden
shift in your schedule may actually cause you to lose sleep
the week after you turn back the clock, according to an article in Sleep
Medicine Reviews.
“People may stay up later [after the
time change] — that’s a little bit easier to do,” Lewy told Yahoo Health. “But
they’re not sleeping in that hour later, because their body clock is waking
them up. So they’re not actually getting that extra hour of sleep on Saturday
night, and then on Sunday night, they actually be getting less sleep than they
did the week before.”
And the z’s you do get may not be as
sound: After the fall transition, people tend to experience a decline in sleep
efficiency — that is, the amount of time in bed spent actually snoozing, not
just restlessly lying there, a Finnish
study found. This was especially true among morning people.
If you find yourself struggling to
adjust year after year, try this strategy the next time around: Starting on the
Friday before the fall transition, take .3 milligrams of melatonin
— you may have to cut up a tablet to get such a small dose — when you wake up;
do this through the Monday after the time change. “Melatonin is a chemical dark
signal. It shifts the body clock later and counteracts the effect of morning
light,” explained Lewy. This tiny dose probably isn’t enough to make you drowsy
— but it will help your body adjust more quickly to the change, he said.
4. Your odds of a heart attack may drop
The season of holiday stress is
officially upon us — but the fall time change may give your body a brief break
from all the cardiac strain. In a 2014
study of 42,060 people, researchers found a 21 percent decrease in
heart-attack cases on the Tuesday following the fall time change. By contrast,
they noticed a 24 percent increase in heart-attack incidence
on the Monday after the clock springs forward in March.
The simplest explanation: The spring
shift forward disrupts your sleep-wake cycle, leading to inflammation; this
physiological strain may compound the inherent stress of Monday mornings,
translating to an increased risk of a heart attack.
Conversely, if you gain an hour ofsleep when the clock winds back — which not all of us do, by the way (seebelow) — your odds of a chest clutcher may decline, thanks to the decreasedstress on your system, the scientists say. “Most people have heart attacks inthe morning, because your blood pressure dips overnight and then rises sharplyat the end of the night into the morning,” said Grandner. “Staying in bed alittle longer might give your body more time to recover — to bring your bloodpressure back up to daytime levels, without it being such a sharpincrease.”
Source: yahoo
