The impact of daylight savings on your body

September 30, 2022

The impact of daylight savings on your body

Ah, daylight savings, it’s a bittersweet bi-yearly occurrence. We love it when we gain extra of sleep, but hate it when we lose that precious hour of sleep. (At least we can say hello to longer, lighter and warmer days, right!?)

For those in the southern hemisphere like us, daylight savings, happening this year on Sunday October 2nd, will be stealing one hour of our precious sleep – sigh.

Although on the face of it, not a drastic loss, losing one hour of sleep can actually impact us quite a bit especially as our research found that almost half of women and non-binary Australians said they aren’t getting the recommended 7-9 hours of sleep a night. We don’t even want to imagine how few hours some Australians might be getting with the clocks going forward an hour!

Even if you are one of the few who manage to get the recommended 7 to 9 hours a night, daylight savings might still cause you to feel a little out of whack.

Daylight savings may also have a larger impact on those who are shift workers, parents looking after a baby (we take our hats off to you) and people who are already struggling with their sleep.

Why does daylight savings impact our body?

To put it simply, with daylight savings causing us to lose an hour of sleep, our internal body clocks are thrown into a state of misalignment. Although this misalignment is only temporary, when we don’t have a good sleep routine in place, it can really cause havoc with our melatonin production. Daylight savings may make us feel like we’re jet-lagged (minus the travel memories).

For a period of time, until we re-adjust (which happens at different rates for different people), daylight savings causes us to battle with the difference between the light (i.e. when the sun rises and sets) and what our body systems were used to.

The bottom line is, daylight savings causes disruption to our circadian rhythm which as healthline defines it, is “your sleep-wake pattern over the course of a 24-hour day”.

When our circadian rhythm is disrupted it can cause our total sleep to be reduced, broken or of lower-quality. This is why we need to prioritise good sleep and a consistent sleep routine.

If you’re keen to create a good a good sleep routine check out our tips here.

How daylight savings mights impact you

Alongside the disturbance to our melatonin production and disruption to our circadian rhythm, daylight savings may also impact us in the following ways:

We might become a little moodier.

When we lack sleep, our irritability usually increases and so we might find ourselves reacting to things a little different or our emotions slightly more fragile. However, this only until our bodies re-adjusts and are better rested.

We might make more mistakes.

Research has found that in the week after losing the hour of sleep, we may err in our judgement or overlook things more often as our ability to concentrate and pay attention has been compromised by the reduction in sleep.

We might get more motivation to exercise in the morning.

Daylight savings brings with it an earlier sunrise which makes it SO much easier to want to get up out of bed and move our bodies.

We might find ourselves going to bed later.

As sunset time gets later and later, it can make falling asleep before then a little tricky because our bodies clocks are usually programmed to feel tired when it’s dark.

If you find yourself struggling to get to sleep why not try a sleep meditation? They’re a great way to help you unwind before bed time and feel ready to receive rest. Read more about the benefits of sleep meditation here.

So when it comes to dealing with daylight savings, know that your body will eventually re-adjust and be sure to make your sleep a priority. Because when we get good sleep we feel better, have boosted energy levels and better concentration.

References: