AccuWeather's Melissa Constanzer and Bernie Rayno spoke with Dr. Alecia Ross, with the Cleveland Clinic, about how you can prepare for the time change this weekend.
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00:00Dr. Alicia Roth from Cleveland Clinic's Sleep Disorders Clinic joins us right now.
00:07And good morning. We want to know, is it easier for us to return to standard time
00:13than it is to adjust ahead for daylight saving time?
00:16Or does it actually take longer for your body to adjust?
00:21That's the change in the fall that's the easier one to adjust to because we're not losing time
00:27with this change, unlike in March where we're losing time. And overall, our bodies
00:35like standard time better than it likes daylight savings time.
00:41And what are some tips that you can do to make the
00:45adjustment time easier Saturday night into Sunday morning?
00:51This is a much easier change because as most people know, we're falling back.
00:56And so with fall back, we get an extra hour of sleep. But now we're going into the part of the
01:02year where there's less light overall in the morning and in the evening. And so with this
01:11change comes the change also just the natural change in the season. So making sure that you're
01:17getting enough light exposure in the morning is a very good thing as far as adapting to this
01:25change back to standard time. And for some of us that work the mornings, it can be hard to get that
01:31light exposure early on. Are there any other health impacts that you need to watch out for
01:37as we make this switch? This switch in the fall is not as detrimental to our health as the switch
01:46in the spring. Because the switch in the spring, we actually lose an hour of sleep, most people.
01:53And we know that from years, decades of research that that loss of one hour of sleep leads to
02:03higher rates of motor vehicle accidents and heart attacks and strokes. So this is not
02:11the time change that we associate with detrimental health effects.
02:17Okay, this next question is huge. You care about this a lot.
02:20I care about this. We're parents. We have toddlers. Any special advice for parents?
02:26And I'm going to listen to this carefully to help the children's sleep schedule adjust.
02:34Yeah, this is a tough one because I think that we're going back to standard time, but we're also
02:41the natural timing of winter is happening too, with just less light overall. And so,
02:49one of the things that I talk to parents and children about is making sure that you stay
02:55on a regular schedule. Don't necessarily change the child's schedule, both during the day and
03:02at night. And also what I was saying before about making sure that your child is getting
03:08adequate light exposure in the morning time to make sure that their internal clock,
03:13their circadian rhythm, stays aligned with the clock time.
03:19Dr. Alicia Roth with the Cleveland Clinic and the Cleveland Clinic's Sleep Disorders Clinic,
03:25thank you again for joining us this morning.