Daylight Savings end: Fall back with ease

Fall back with ease after Daylight Savings ends

HOUSTON -- (October 30, 2006) -- Having trouble falling back with the time change? A sleep expert offers advice on how to adjust.

Dr. Daniel Glaze, associate professor of pediatrics-neurology at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and chief of Texas Children's Hospital Sleep Clinic, says that the best thing people can do is establish a routine schedule. If your body is used to going to bed at 10 p.m., it will want to at 9 p.m. following the time change. Glaze recommends delaying sleep until 10 p.m. Ways to do this include staying active a bit longer and keeping bright lights turned on in your house.

Glaze does not expect many adults to have a problem with the shift. "It is only an hour and it is easier to delay your bedtime than advance it," he said. Teenagers will most likely have the easiest time adjusting to the change, said Glaze, as it synchronizes bedtime with their biological clocks. Children and parents of young children will have the most difficulty.

"The problem is that kids may wake up early and become cranky and drowsy at night," said Glaze. To reset their clocks, Glaze says to keep them up until their established bedtime. It will take about four to five days to adapt to the new routine, he said.

Everyone should establish a schedule and stick to it, said Glaze. Adults should limit their intake of caffeine and alcohol. Sticking to your sleep and wake routine is also important on the weekends. "Catching up on the weekends" doesn't restore restfulness; it just confuses your body's rhythm, Glaze said.

"Newborns need up to 20 hours of sleep; toddlers, about 14 to 15; children, about nine to 10; teens, nine; and adults, seven to eight," said Glaze. "Everyone has a genetic clock." Complicating matters is that societal expectations are often at odds with our internal clocks, for example, school schedules. Children, whose genetic clocks dictate early-to-bed, early-to-rise times, are usually scheduled to start school late in the morning. Teenagers, whose clocks tell them to go to bed late and wake up late, tend to start school early in the morning. This reversal can affect both academic performance and behavior in negative ways, said Glaze.

To adjust to the end of daylight savings, Glaze recommends that people of all ages stick to their routine and delay going to sleep until it is the right time for bed.