Daylight saving time (DST) begins this weekend. At 2 a.m. on Sunday, most people will turn their clocks an hour ahead.
Although most people are only losing an hour of sleep, medical experts say this shift can impact one’s health and wellness, especially if they are already sleep deprived.
According to the Sleep Foundation, there have been “troubling trends” associated with this time shift, including sleep problems like insomnia, as well as upticks in heart problems, mood disorders and motor vehicle collisions.
Dr. Jonathan Berg, a pulmonologist and sleep medicine specialist at Good Samaritan Hospital, agrees. However, he told FOX Business that these issues all stem back to the changes in people’s circadian rhythm and the stress associated with the change.
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“Our circadian rhythm is an imperfect clock that needs external stimuli such as light exposure in order to adjust it to our 24–hour schedule throughout the day,” he said. “Over the course of a day, levels of hormones which affect our behavior and levels of attentiveness and arousal vary in accordance with our circadian rhythm.”
Berg added: “These time shifts are associated with increased rates of cardiac events. This is likely due to the abrupt change in circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythm affects circulating levels of hormones. Heart attacks are more common in the morning hours as a result of this. The abrupt change in circadian rhythm likely affects the release and timing of certain hormones as well as increasing stress on the body. This can increase the stress on the heart, particularly in people with underlying cardiovascular disease”
The problem is that most people are already sleep deprived, so shifting clocks an hour ahead every March only exacerbates this issue.
“The most common sleep disorder I see is chronic sleep deprivation, people generally get less weight than they need. And then all of a sudden you take an hour away from them, and most people don’t prepare for it,” he said.
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“Sleep debt” is a real problem, he said.
Sleep debt is defined as the difference between the amount of sleep someone needs and the amount they actually get, according to the Sleep Foundation. Sleep debt will progressively build if someone doesn’t get adequate sleep over a consecutive number of days, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
“As sleep debt builds, brain and body functioning deteriorate,” the CDC said.
There are “clear decreases in concentration, reaction time and performance” as sleep debt builds, and a person can’t simply make up for the lack of sleep with a few extra hours on the weekend, Berg noted.
In fact, the CDC said that it could take several nights of good-quality sleep to recover.
Meanwhile. most automobile accidents are not related to someone completely falling asleep at the wheel, but are typically from delays in reaction time and losing focus while driving, according to Berg.
He noted that there is an “increase in auto accidents, not just the day after but the week following the time shift.”
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The best way to prepare for this shift is to gradually move your clock beforehand to make sure you’re getting enough sleep, Berg said. Even small increments, like 15 to 20 minutes each night, “can kind of help ease the transition, so it’s not quite a shock,” he said.