Daylight Savings Time began on March 10th in the U.S. and clocks were moved forward by one hour. This change occurs during the warmer period of the year and was originally introduced to save energy. Since the sun shines for longer in the evening, the lights are not switched on as long.
Many people struggle with health problems shortly after this change due to our body‘s internal clock. Our internal clocks are especially influenced by light and darkness. It has now been conclusively proven that a lack of light makes us feel low, makes it more difficult to stay awake and disturbs our sleep-wake rhythm.
The impact of light deficiency includes a lack of serotonin – a messenger substance that lifts mood – in the brain, and an excess of the darkness hormone melatonin in the morning. In short, our hormone production cycle is disturbed. Many of us now wake up in darkness or near darkness during the morning.
When the clocks go forward to summer time, we lose an hour of sleep and our melatonin levels cannot quickly readjust. This means that we are very tired in the morning and, by contrast, feel awake much longer in the evening, even though we have normally gone to bed by this time of night.
Be patient if you are struggling with the effects of the time change. Your body is likely to adjust in between 4 and 14 days.
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