Daylight savings time is coming, but if you prepare your body correctly, losing an hour doesn’t have to leave you groggy! Find out how to get ready for the shift.
March 2023. This article is independently written by Shelby Golding. All opinions given are hers. Shelby has been certified as a personal trainer and nutritional specialist since 2007. In 2008, she found her passion for writing about these topics and hasn't looked back.
Research shows that the annual shift for daylight savings time has multiple detrimental effects on our health. And the best way to reduce these effects is to start getting ready one to two weeks in advance.
Keep reading to find out how to prepare your body for daylight savings time and avoid the dreaded grogginess on the second Monday (let’s be real, the second week) of March.
How to Prepare Your Body for Daylight Savings Time
We’ll cover eight surprising ways what losing an hour of daylight savings time (DST) can do to your body in the next section. But first, let’s look at how to prepare your body to lose an hour of sleep.
March 1st: Start Getting Enough Sleep
Starting March 1st, aim to get seven to nine hours of sleep every night. Of course, different people need different amounts of sleep to feel rested, so you'll need to experiment to find out where you fall between seven and nine hours.
The National Sleep Foundation recommends assessing your sleep needs by considering questions like the following:
The National Sleep Foundation recommends assessing your sleep needs by considering questions like the following:
- Do I feel alert, happy, and productive on this amount of sleep? If not, you likely need more sleep.
- Do I depend on caffeine to get me through the day? If so, you likely need more sleep.
- Do I sleep more on the weekends? If so, you should likely aim for more sleep every night, not just on the weekends.
The good news is that you can adjust your diet to reduce inflammation. And as a result, you’ll likely see an improvement in chronic pain symptoms.
March 1st: Cut Out Caffeine, Alcohol, and Before-Bed Screen Time
To give your body the best chance of handling March's DST with minimal stress, avoid drinking caffeine and alcohol as much as possible starting on March 1st. While some regular coffee drinkers might need at least one cup as they roll out of bed 10 minutes earlier each day, try to limit it to that one early morning cup.
Coffee and alcohol both interfere with sleep quality, making it difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep.
You’ll also want to avoid blue light exposure from screens for at least two hours before bed starting on the first day of March. Research shows that blue light suppresses melatonin production and causes neurophysiological arousal, contributing to and exacerbating sleep problems.
March 5th: Change Your Sleep Schedule
Don’t make your body adjust to losing an hour of sleep in one night! Instead, start going to bed and waking up 10 minutes earlier each night on the first Sunday of March (which is March 5th, 2023). By Saturday night, the night before we lose an hour, you'll be heading to bed an hour early. Then, once the clock changes, you can resume your normal bedtime.
This helps your body slowly adjust to going to sleep and waking up an hour earlier.
This helps your body slowly adjust to going to sleep and waking up an hour earlier.
March 5th: Push Back Your Dinner and Breakfast
As you push your bedtime back 10 minutes a night in the week leading up to the DST shift, do the same with your dinner. Eat dinner 10 minutes earlier every night starting on the first Sunday of March.
Similarly, eat breakfast 10 minutes earlier to tell your body you're starting the day. Eating earlier helps shift your body's clock to the new time and prevent severe disruptions in your schedule.
Generally, you’ll also want to finish your dinner four hours before going to bed, so it's easier to fall asleep.
Similarly, eat breakfast 10 minutes earlier to tell your body you're starting the day. Eating earlier helps shift your body's clock to the new time and prevent severe disruptions in your schedule.
Generally, you’ll also want to finish your dinner four hours before going to bed, so it's easier to fall asleep.
March 5th: Get Sunlight in the Morning
Exposure to morning sunlight can help your body adjust its circadian rhythm more efficiently. For at least one week before DST and one week after DST, spend as much time outdoors in the morning hours as possible.
March 5th: Get in Morning Workouts
Exercising in the morning helps increase wakefulness, raise your body’s temperature, and reset your internal clock. Try to get at least 30 minutes of exercise or activity every morning for one week leading up to DST and one week after DST.
You can pair this with your morning sunlight exposure and go for a 30-minute outdoor walk every morning. You'll also combat the decrease in metabolism and increase in weight gain that's common following DST in March.
You can pair this with your morning sunlight exposure and go for a 30-minute outdoor walk every morning. You'll also combat the decrease in metabolism and increase in weight gain that's common following DST in March.
Why Daylight Savings Time Is Bad for Your Health
Most of us lose an hour of sleep every March. And while that might not sound like much, it really is. That’s not all that daylight savings time causes, either. We all also have to readjust our circadian rhythms, which govern vital body systems and processes such as:
- Sleep
- Digestion
- Heart function
- Hormone production
- Moods
According to a statement published in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, daylight savings time can “cause misalignment between the biological clock and environmental clock, resulting in significant health and public safety-related consequences, especially in the days immediately following the annual change to DST.”
Here are just some of the ways daylight savings time is detrimental to our collective health:
Here are just some of the ways daylight savings time is detrimental to our collective health:
- 24% increased risk of a heart attack on the first Monday following the DST change in March (this risk gradually lowers each day over the first week)
- 6% higher risk of fatal motor vehicle accidents in the week following the DST change in March
- 11% increased risk of depression for 10 weeks following the DST change in March
- 8% higher risk of stroke in the days following the DST change in March
- 3% increase in digestive and immune-related diseases (e.g., colitis) in the days following the DST change in March
- Increased suicide rates in the days following the DST change in March
- Slower metabolism and higher risk of weight gain in the days following the DST change in March
- Higher risk of cluster headaches and migraines in the days following the DST change in March
Yikes! It’s hard to imagine that losing an hour of sleep and jumping our clocks forward an hour could cause so many issues, but the proof is in the research.
Wait… Wasn’t Daylight Savings Time Going to End This Year?
In 2022, the U.S. Senate approved a bill known as the Sunshine Protection Act to make daylight savings time permanent. For those of us who don’t much care for daylight savings time, this was exciting. Unfortunately, though, it wasn’t as promising of a move as we’d hoped.
For one, it was a bit of an accident that the bill was approved in the first place. Many senators weren’t aware of the bill, and the one senator who’d planned to object and halt the unanimous approval was a no-show when the bill hit the floor. No one else objected, but some senators have commented that they'd expected someone else to object.
For one, it was a bit of an accident that the bill was approved in the first place. Many senators weren’t aware of the bill, and the one senator who’d planned to object and halt the unanimous approval was a no-show when the bill hit the floor. No one else objected, but some senators have commented that they'd expected someone else to object.
The accidental approval of the Sunshine Protection Act is just half of the story, though. Approving the bill is not the same as passing it into law. The U.S. House of Representatives has yet to discuss the bill, which is a necessary step before it’s eligible to receive the President’s signature and become official.
So, long story short, we’ll likely need to take extra precautions to prepare our bodies for daylight savings time twice a year for the foreseeable future.
Bonus Tip! Starting March 1st: Apply Kailo
Apply your Kailo Pain Patch every morning near the site of any chronic pain to make it easier to change your schedule and prepare your body for daylight savings time. Changing your days can feel exhausting when you live with chronic pain, but Kailo is here to provide relief.
Kailo is designed to relieve your pain in seconds, and it’s theorized to work by interfering with your body's electrical system. In a recent clinical study, a majority of patients reported that they stopped using medication when using Kailo for pain relief. In addition, the study showed that Kailo is more effective than other prescription and over-the-counter medications, with no side effects!
Disclaimer: Kailo should not be used if you have a pacemaker or are pregnant. Always consult your doctor or health care professional before using Kailo.
Kailo is designed to relieve your pain in seconds, and it’s theorized to work by interfering with your body's electrical system. In a recent clinical study, a majority of patients reported that they stopped using medication when using Kailo for pain relief. In addition, the study showed that Kailo is more effective than other prescription and over-the-counter medications, with no side effects!
Disclaimer: Kailo should not be used if you have a pacemaker or are pregnant. Always consult your doctor or health care professional before using Kailo.
