Remember daylight savings begins on Sunday – see our expert tips on how to adjust your body clock
With spring in full swing, another messenger of summer is just around the corner – Daylight Savings Time (DST) is due to begin this weekend in Victoria! Don’t forget to turn your clock forward by one hour on Sunday, 3 October 2021 at 2am.
Does the switch leave you feeling sluggish?
While daylight savings gives us the opportunity to enjoy longer summer days with more light in the evening, it can also take us a little while to to adapt. Here, a Deakin University sleep expert offers us some tips to help our bodies adjust to the time shift and get a good night’s sleep (including those of you with young children at home!).
Associate Professor Mark Stokes from Deakin’s School of Psychology says our sleep-wake cycle takes a hit when the clocks change, leaving some people struggling to sleep.
‘Our internal body clock, or circadian rhythm, is regulated by exposure to bright sunlight. That repowers the rhythm and resets our body clock allowing us to adjust each day to lengthening and shortening days,’ says Mark.
‘Daylight savings shifts the outside clock an hour in one direction or another, but not your internal body clock. So, you can tell it to adjust as much as you like, but it will only do so in response to the right stimuli: sunlight.’
A few days with morning light exposure will see most people get over the struggle of waking earlier when daylight savings starts.
Mark cautions that we should never underestimate the power of sleep.
‘We know it is during sleep when the brain consolidates learning from the day and sheds the unimportant experiences. It also allows your body to recover,’ he says.
‘When your sleep-wake cycle is not aligned with the day-night cycle, your mind and body will be more fatigued and your reactions will be significantly reduced in speed and accuracy.’
Reset your sleep cycle
If you could stand to improve your sleep habits, try Mark’s top tips for getting a good night’s rest.
- Take a morning walk. Exposure to as much morning light as early as possible repowers the body clock’s rhythm and is important to maintaining stable sleep-wake cycles and enabling you to get the best sleep you can. ‘As pretty as dawn may be, if the sun is not up there is no light to adjust your inner clock,’ says Mark.
- Stick to a bedtime routine and ditch the screens. Help your body adjust by going to bed at a regular time and limit the use of screens, including TVs, computers, iPads, phones, and game consoles before bedtime. ‘Screens suppress the sleep start signals in the brain, called the Dim-Light-Melatonin-Onset, which take several hours to work, and if missed do not come on again later,’ explains Mark, adding this can ‘make it harder for kids to get to sleep’. Mark advises you wind down well before bedtime: ‘Turning screens off should be done early in the evening. At dusk is the best time at daylight savings or two hours after dusk in winter.’
- Have a nap. A 15-minute nap in the afternoon takes advantage of how our circadian rhythms are built – made of little, short rhythms all piled together. ‘In some cultures, a siesta is a daily occurrence which is not a bad idea as these people feel much more rested for the remainder of the day,’ says Mark.
Enjoy the extra sunshine in your day as we gear up for Study Week, and good luck in your T2/S2 exams!
Adapted from a Deakin staff article by Mandi O’Garretty.