Time Lapse
Feeling a little out of sync? A step behind, perhaps?
Maybe you forgot to set the clock ahead one hour to mark the 2 a.m. Sunday start of daylight-saving time.
Even those who did remember could be feeling sluggish, said some local sleep experts.
The time change can be difficult, said Ken Verostek, a sleep technician with the sleep lab at Butler Memorial Hospital.
“Humans have their own biological clock, the circadian rhythm,” Verostek said. “A time change is almost like jet lag where you have to reset your clock in a rapid fashion. It can take three days to a week when you have such a rapid change.”
It's worse when we set the clocks ahead an hour in the spring, said Carol Holland, director of student counseling at Slippery Rock University for the past seven years and the holder of a doctorate in psychology. She deals with a lot of student sleep issues, especially insomnia.
“When you lose the hour in the spring, you have a harder time adjusting than when you are gaining an hour of sleep in the fall,” Holland said.
“The biological clock is controlled by the brain, it's basically the sleep cycle,” said Verostek.
It is influenced by factors such as the amount of light.
“It's only been since the late 1800s with electric lights and shift workers,” said Verostek, that this cycle has been disrupted.
“We are on a 24-hour clock now,” said Verostek's fellow sleep technician at the hospital's sleep lab, Ashley Green. “Factories are running 24 hours. People are up when they should be sleeping.”And, she said, people have access to too many electronic devices.She sees it with the patients in the sleep lab, which was started by the hospital in 1994 and whose technicians monitor the slumbers of six people a night every night of the week.Or they would if they could get the subjects to turn off their smart phones.“People come in and have their iPad or their cell phones in their hands, most definitely,” she said.Green said her own sleeping patterns are unusual. She works three nights at the sleep lab, starting at 7:30 p.m., monitoring patients all night and getting done at 6 a.m.She said each sleep technician monitors two patients a night, mostly looking for signs of sleep apnea, a disorder characterized by abnormal pauses in breathing or instances of low breathing.This weekend's time-change just illustrates how the modern age tends to minimize the importance of sleep, Holland noted.“We're a nation that's sleep-deprived anyway,” Holland said. “When we lose yet another hour, that has consequences to our health.”“Research suggests people have decreased performance and alertness is down by a third,” she added.“There are more accidents on the Monday after the daylight-saving time switchover,” Holland said.“Excessive sleepiness can contribute to some kind of injury at work,” she added, and, more importantly for students, lack of sleep can impair memory and the cognitive ability to encode and remember information. “You get what we call Teflon brain. Nothing sticks,” she said.“And just, overall, it's a poor quality of life, if you are tired,” Holland said. “You just don't feel good, you are exhausted, tired. Either you don't want to take part in activities or you may press yourself much further.”Chronic lack of sleep can show up in health problems such as high blood pressure, heart attacks, obesity and psychological disorders.But in the short term, Holland said, there are a few steps people can take to minimize the effects of the time change. It's too late to make any difference for this weekend's spring ahead, but for the next such adjustment, Holland suggests:“Just be aware it is coming,” she said. “The week before, try going to bed 15 minutes earlier to minimize the switch.”Make an effort to be well rested in the days leading to the change.
Know how much sleep you need. “The circadian rhythm is our internal sleep/wake cycle. Some are night owls, some early risers,” Holland said.“I'm an early morning person. I'm up at 5 a.m., raring to go. Many in my office do not like that,” she added.Verostek said the normal amount a sleep needed can range from six to 10 hours, with the average being eight.Holland advised avoiding stimulants such as alcohol, caffeine and chocolate.And, finally, eat light the night before the change.Green also suggested gradually acclimating your body by setting the clock ahead in 15-minute increments in the days leading up to the switch.“This will get your body used to the upcoming time change,” Green said. “If you can start a couple of days before a time change, your body can be trained and reset.”Another good way to shake off the wariness is to take it all to heart, Green said.“Daylight-saving time is based on light, so that people can be outside in the sunlight,” she said.“You should go outside in the sun in the morning, take a walk or get a little bit of exercise. Be out in the sunlight, it's good for you,” Green said.
