Surviving Daylight Savings Time in 2024

On Sunday, March 10, most people in the U.S. and Canada will turn their clocks forward one hour. Those who live in the U.K. and Europe make the same adjustment on March 31.

This change, and the time period that passes between March and the return of the clocks in November, is known as daylight savings time.

The period between November and March when daylight saving time is not in effect is known as daylight standard time.

The spring and fall daylight savings time transitions affect approximately 1.6 billion people worldwide. The spring transition has particularly disastrous impact.

The spring change inaugurates a number of disastrous consequences.

In the 1-2 days following the start of daylight savings time in March, we experience a significant increase—as high as 30%--in fatal traffic accidents.

We see a dramatic rise—nearly 60%—in workplace injuries.

Heart attacks and symptoms such as atrial fibrillation increase by 4%.

The incidence of strokes increases.

At the same time, there is an uptake in missed medical appointments, emergency room visits, and return visits to the hospital.

The transition to daylight saving time exacerbates existing mood disturbances, and causes a rise in suicide.

These changes occur only during the spring transition from standard time to DST. And they’re not minor changes. In 2020, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) wrote a position paper advocating for the permanent adoption of standard time, which would keep us in tune with our circadian rhythms. (This would mean doing away with daylight saving time.)

The media, popular thought, and even the medical profession tend to refer to the spring time change as simply “losing an hour of sleep.” But it’s so much more than that.

Our Sense of (Circadian) Rhythm

Almost all species have internal biological rhythms and with them, a sense of time.

The field of chronobiology studies the biological and cyclical rhythms in the body; you can think of its existence as testimony that our bodies have a relationship with time itself.

We have internal circadian (approximately 24-hour) clocks that generate and shape daily cycles in our physiology, emotion, and behavior.

The term “circadian” comes from the word circa, meaning approximate and diem, meaning day--so, “approximate day.” Our 24-hour circadian rhythms are generated by a molecular circadian clock which is present in nearly every cell in the mammalian body.

When we adjust the clock artificially by even an hour, we lose our circadian rhythm balance, which affect health, emotional well-being, and social interaction.

If you lived underground in a place with no contextual information from the outer world, you’d have a daily rhythm closer to 24.2 hours.

Getting sunlight adjusts your behavior to a solar day; otherwise, your rhythm would be way off. In just five days without any sunlight, you’d be off by a full hour. In one month, you’d be off by a full six hours.

The effects of being out of sync show up at the level of your cells, your tissue, and your behavior.

Moving the clocks forward causes sleep loss and a resulting sleep debt and tiredness. But that’s not all. While the time has changed, all your external cues for light, food, and sleep stay the same; they’re synced to the sunlight. That means your light viewing, eating, and sleep times are driven out of sync.

Let’s look at how you can plan in advance to minimize the cellular disturbance of daylight savings.

We’ll also explore ways to bolster three areas impacted by the time change: digestion, mood, and immunity.

How To Prepare In Advance for Daylight Saving Time

By the time you read this, we’ll be a week or so out from March 10—more if you happen to live in an area of the world that changes on March 31.

The time change will have you waking up one hour earlier in the morning, but also—and this is the toughest part when we travel—going to bed at a time that feels to your body to be one hour earlier.

Starting 6-7 evenings before the time change, wake up 10 minutes earlier each day and go to bed 10 minutes earlier each night. (If you start with a 10-day lead time, you can wake up and go to sleep just 6 minutes earlier each day.) This makes the time change less dramatic to your body, mind, ad brain.

To support the earlier awakening and sleep times, try the following:

• wake up 10 minutes earlier each morning

• avoid caffeine until 2 hours after waking to allow your adenosine receptors to become active; this helps adenosine, your sleep pressure compound, build so that you’re able to go to bed earlier

• if possible, stop caffeine use by 10:00 a.m. (caffeine has a 14+-hour half-life in your body

• as soon as possible after waking up, try for 15 minutes’ time outside (walking to or waiting at a bus stop counts)

• build in a 15-20 minute restorative practice in the early afternoon; to keep sleep pressure building, try to avoid falling asleep

• be particularly rigorous about lowering the lights around your home, particularly the overhead ones, which will hit the light-sensitive areas at the bottom of your eyes. You can also try replacing any bright white lights with floor-sitting red bulbs if you have them, or use a soft nightlight.

• limit your screen time—both computer and phone—starting 2 hours before bedtime (allow a wider no-screen window than you would ordinarily)

• begin your pre-sleep winding down period 10 minutes earlier and increase the length of time you spend winding down before bed

Now, let’s explore specific interventions designed to bolster two of the systems that determine well-being: our digestive and immune systems.

The bonus: When we boost these two systems, we also prime emotional well-being.

Supporting Your Digestive System

You have an enteric nervous system, or belly brain. This system comprises three-fourths of your immunity. It also affects your mood. Taking the steps above to regulate your waking and sleep times will minimize the loss of sleep that would have an immediate funky effect on digestion. But there’s more that you can do on a specific level.

Your gut microbiome, which includes key gut microbes and digestive juices, functions in a rhythmic way in attunement with both 4-hour and 24-hour circadian rhythms. Digestive juices are secreted prior to when we usually eat—one reason why regular mealtimes are beneficial, because your gut can prepare for optimal digestion.

This tells us something vital: the gut microbiome has both a circadian memory and an anticipatory mechanism.

In much the same way as you do with your sleep and wake times, you can begin the process of recalibrating your digestive system 6-7 days in advance.

Take your first meal of the day 10 minutes later each day until you’re back to eating at the chronological (clock) time you’re used to. If you have breakfast at 8:00 a.m., for example, begin on the first day by eating at 8:10, the second day at 8:20, and so on. This is ideal, because a ten-minute change is well within the timeframe of your digestive processes.

If you begin a week in advance, you can do the same—eat 10 minutes later each day—with your evening meal. And because the time change has an inflammatory effect on the body, including digestion, avoid inflammatory foods during the preparation period, particularly at night.

If you include fermented foods in your diet, you can increase them during this time period, particularly at your evening meal. If you don’t use them but would like to try them, I’d advise doing so in very small amounts. (The same is true for adding probiotics before your meals.)

What happens if despite the best of intentions, you don’t have the ability to adjust your mealtimes by ten minutes a day in the week leading up to the time change? Here’s what I did last year when things snuck up on me. For the first few days of the time change, I had my first meal a full hour later in the day; this is what my gut microbiome “expected,” and when it was primed for digestion.

This may be surprising, but I treated my last meal of the day differently. To lower inflammation and minimize indigestion before going to sleep, I ate my last meal of the day about 45 minutes earlier than normal. I added more fermented foods, which are already a regular part of my diet, to the beginning of my meal to prime my digestive process along. This was a major game-changer. It helped my gut microbiome adjust, and also made it possible to go to bed, and fall asleep, earlier.

In case you’re wondering how long it takes for the enteric nervous system to catch up with this change, no one knows for sure. But we do know that digestive rhythms take more than a day to adjust—especially in someone with a history of inflammatory gut issues (IBS).

Supporting Your Immune System

Immune cells also have a clock. Normal immune responses depend greatly on the time of day. Your ability to fight off an endotoxin depends on the time of day you come into contact with it, and the status of your immune system when you do.

A time shift like daylight saving puts the body in a pro-inflammatory state, which can make us vulnerable to illness.

If you take supplements to boost your immune system (I do not), you can do so in the time leading up to and including the first week of daylight saving time.

By tending to your sleep-wake and eating cycles as above, this already boosts your immunity. I also make sure I still to my movement practices during this time—but I make it move fun. (Think dance, new forms of exercise, walks with loved ones.)

I also ensure that I build in small amounts of eustress, the kind of stress that’s beneficial for well-being. My favorite method for doing so is cold water immersion. I do this in the morning to increase wakefulness, and because cortisol surges are best in the morning, in keeping with cortisol’s 24-hour cycle.

If you’ve never tried cold therapy, you can start by immersing your hands and face alternately in a bowl of ice water for 30 seconds. Then increase by 10 seconds or so each day.

Cold immersion also has a beneficial effect of boosting dopamine, which elevates mood.

Finally, after all this, I also recommend another practice: the art of surrender.

The Self-to-Self and Self-to-Body Relationship

Those of us already getting morning sunlight are in sync with the natural changes in light. The photoreceptors in our eyes note that this time of year, it gets lighter earlier and remains so a little longer each day.

Daylight savings introduces an artificial change, one not in line with what our body clocks know to be true.

Having to align with this artificial change protects our health from the deleterious effects of daylight saving time.

But aligning with DST means that we are out of sync with the “cellular moment” and with the natural world. So for a month or so, at least in my mind-brain-body world, I practice the art of self-love more intentionally, understanding that in myriad small ways, my body won’t feel like my own. My gut will digest in a funkier way. I might be clumsier. (Yes, proprioception also has a circadian rhythm.) I might be a little less cognitively on point.

Sometimes, an excuse to boost our self-to-self and self-to-body relationship with more attention, compassion, and care is just the good medicine we need.

It helps be better world citizens, too.

Because after all, the revolution we’re moving toward won’t be achieved without it.

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Sources:

The spring and fall daylight savings time transitions affect approximately 1.6 billion: Hansen, Bertel T.; Sønderskov, Kim M.; Hageman, Ida; Dinesen, Peter T.; Østergaard, Søren D.. Daylight Savings Time Transitions and the Incidence Rate of Unipolar Depressive Episodes. Epidemiology 28(3):p 346-353, May 2017. | DOI: 10.1097/EDE.0000000000000580

These include a significant increase in fatal traffic accidents: Prats-Uribe, A., Tobías, A., & Prieto-Alhambra, D. (2018). Excess Risk of Fatal Road Traffic Accidents on the Day of Daylight Saving Time Change. Epidemiology (Cambridge, Mass.), 29(5), e44–e45. https://doi.org/10.1097/EDE.0000000000000865

We also see a short-term (nearly 6%) rise in workplace injuries: Barnes, C. M., & Wagner, D. T. (2009). Changing to daylight saving time cuts into sleep and increases workplace injuries. The Journal of applied psychology, 94(5), 1305–1317. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015320

This includes a higher risk of heart attacks: Crnko, S., Du Pré, B. C., Sluijter, J. P. G., & Van Laake, L. W. (2019). Circadian rhythms and the molecular clock in cardiovascular biology and disease. Nature reviews. Cardiology, 16(7), 437–447. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41569-019-0167-4. See also: Manfredini, R., Fabbian, F., Cappadona, R., De Giorgi, A., Bravi, F., Carradori, T., Flacco, M. E., & Manzoli, L. (2019). Daylight Saving Time and Acute Myocardial Infarction: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of clinical medicine, 8(3), 404. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm8030404. See also: Janszky I, Ljung R. Shifts to and from daylight saving time and incidence of myocardial infarction. N Engl J Med. 2008;359(18):1966–1968. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMc0807104. See also: Janszky, I., Ahnve, S., Ljung, R., Mukamal, K. J., Gautam, S., Wallentin, L., & Stenestrand, U. (2012). Daylight saving time shifts and incidence of acute myocardial infarction – Swedish Register of Information and Knowledge About Swedish Heart Intensive Care Admissions (RIKS-HIA). Sleep Medicine, 13(3), 237–242. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2011.07.019

A greater incidence of strokes: Sipilä, J. O., Ruuskanen, J. O., Rautava, P., & Kytö, V. (2016). Changes in ischemic stroke occurrence following daylight saving time transitions. Sleep medicine, 27-28, 20–24. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2016.10.009

And symptoms such as atrial fibrillation: Chudow, J. J., Dreyfus, I., Zaremski, L., Mazori, A. Y., Fisher, J. D., Di Biase, L., Romero, J., Ferrick, K. J., & Krumerman, A. (2020). Changes in atrial fibrillation admissions following daylight saving time transitions. Sleep medicine, 69, 155–158. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2020.01.018

A higher number of both emergency room visits and return visits to the hospital: Ferrazzi, E., Romualdi, C., Ocello, M., Frighetto, G., Turco, M., Vigolo, S., Fabris, F., Angeli, P., Vettore, G., Costa, R., & Montagnese, S. (2018). Changes in Accident & Emergency Visits and Return Visits in Relation to the Enforcement of Daylight Saving Time and Photoperiod. Journal of biological rhythms, 33(5), 555–564. https://doi.org/10.1177/0748730418791097

There occurs an increase in missed medical appointments: Ellis, D. A., Luther, K., & Jenkins, R. (2018). Missed medical appointments during shifts to and from daylight saving time. Chronobiology international, 35(4), 584–588. https://doi.org/10.1080/07420528.2017.1417313

It alters gene expression in cardiac myocytes: Martino, T. A., Tata, N., Belsham, D. D., Chalmers, J., Straume, M., Lee, P., Pribiag, H., Khaper, N., Liu, P. P., Dawood, F., Backx, P. H., Ralph, M. R., & Sole, M. J. (2007). Disturbed diurnal rhythm alters gene expression and exacerbates cardiovascular disease with rescue by resynchronization. Hypertension (Dallas, Tex. : 1979), 49(5), 1104–1113. https://doi.org/10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.106.083568

Alters the epigenetic profile of core clock genes: Malow, B. A., Veatch, O. J., & Bagai, K. (2020). Are Daylight Saving Time Changes Bad for the Brain?. JAMA neurology, 77(1), 9–10. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamaneurol.2019.3780

Increases inflammatory markers: Wright, K. P., Jr, Drake, A. L., Frey, D. J., Fleshner, M., Desouza, C. A., Gronfier, C., & Czeisler, C. A. (2015). Influence of sleep deprivation and circadian misalignment on cortisol, inflammatory markers, and cytokine balance. Brain, behavior, and immunity, 47, 24–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbi.2015.01.004

Lowers vagal tone: Grimaldi, D., Carter, J. R., Van Cauter, E., & Leproult, R. (2016). Adverse Impact of Sleep Restriction and Circadian Misalignment on Autonomic Function in Healthy Young Adults. Hypertension (Dallas, Tex. : 1979), 68(1), 243–250. https://doi.org/10.1161/HYPERTENSIONAHA.115.06847

Daylight Saving Time increases already-existing mood disturbances, and causes a rise in suicide: mood disturbances and suicide: Berk, M., Dodd, S., Hallam, K., Berk, L., Gleeson, J., & Henry, M. (2008). Small shifts in diurnal rhythms are associated with an increase in suicide: The effect of daylight saving. Sleep and Biological Rhythms, 6(1), 22–25. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1479-8425.2007.00331.x