For years, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, experts on all things sleep, has called for daylight saving time to be abolished.
In the days leading up to this weekend’s time change, their cause was debated in yet another congressional hearing.
But for now, we’re stuck with, well, Cranky Monday.
“Basically what is going to happen Monday morning is that you will have jet lag without traveling,” said Dr. Abid Bhat, medical director for the University Health Sleep Center, formerly Truman Medical Centers.
We move our clocks ahead an hour at 2 a.m. Sunday. Medical experts oppose this yo-yoing of springing ahead and falling back because it messes with our health in demonstrative ways. The sleep medicine academy says research supports year-round standard time.
The American Heart Association has issued its yearly reminder that incidents of heart disease and stroke go up at daylight saving time — a biological “clock shock” thus far unexplained.
And here’s hoping you don’t have to be in federal court on Monday. One study found that judges hand out longer sentences on that day compared to other days — the Association for Psychological Science declared “sleepy punishers are harsh punishers.”
Some experts even suggest not scheduling anything important next week because you’ll be off your game until you get back into your regular sleep pattern. To make it simple, our body is aligned with the outside world through a biological clock. So there’s a synchrony. And when you change that there’s a misalignment.Dr. Abid bhat, Medical director for the University Health Sleep Center
Changing the clock changes up our body’s production of hormones, including melatonin, the night-time hormone that affects sleep; cortisol, the stress hormone; and serotonin, the “feel-good” hormone that helps keep depression and anxiety at bay. Which explains the crankiness.
“To make it simple, our body is aligned with the outside world through a biological clock. So there’s a synchrony,” said Bhat. “And when you change that there’s a misalignment.”
And now, because of the pandemic, there’s a new group of people suffering a host of sleep problems.
“It is stunning how many people we see in the sleep clinic who had COVID,” said Bhat.
They cover the spectrum, from people who had mild symptoms to those who were hospitalized. They started coming into the sleep center last year, Bhat said, a parade of exhausted people, some in tears because their new sleep problems got in the way of daily life.
“They’re very sleepy, tired, exhausted, no energy, what we call sometimes post-COVID fatigue syndrome,” said Bhat. “Extreme lethargy — brain fog is a common term people are using. I had a young mom say, ‘I can’t take care of my young kids.’”
