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Body clock adjusts to time change
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FarkRAPID CITY — The change back to Daylight Standard Time this week may find some people struggling with shifting sleep patterns or adjusting to earlier darkness. For others, the limited exposure to daylight may bring on a bout of depression.
“The adjustment period to the time change will last a week or two,” said Dr. Alan Kelts of Rapid City Regional Hospital’s Sleep Health Center. If it takes longer, you may want to consult your health-care provider.
According to Kelts, it is important to get a blast of light either at the beginning of the day or at the end of the day (for night people). This helps to establish the new time change, but to also keep a sunny outlook on winter.
“The exposure to natural or artificial light will help the body fall into sync with the time change and may even help fight off the blues,” he said.
For the most part, people fall into two categories in sleeping terms: larks and owls. Those who get up early and go to bed early are classified as larks. Those who function better later in the day and sleep late into the morning are known as owls. Whether an owl or a lark, people need to get enough sleep, Kelts said.
“Most people need seven to eight hours of sleep,” he said.
When the time changes, the body’s internal clock, called the suprachiasmatic nucleus, or SCN, begins to regulate that shift into the body’s Circadian Rhythm, which runs our bodies on a 25-hour cycle rather than the earth’s 24-hour rotation.
During the next few weeks, Kelts suggests that it is better to continue to go to bed when feeling tired rather than staying up until the clock reads bedtime, and get up when you naturally awaken. As the days darken earlier, people will tend to fall quite naturally into a sleep routine.
“For many people it’s easier to get up an hour later than to get up an hour earlier,” Kelts said. “Yet some people never adjust.”
Those working the nightshift during the time change were planning on a few adjustments of their own. Jeff Beach, Linda Bednarz and Tim Dryden were on the schedule to work at the Windmill Truck Stop on the nightshift from 10:30 p.m. Saturday to 7:30 a.m. Sunday.
Five months into the convenience store’s graveyard shift, Bednarz, 57, is grateful for the time change. Busy throughout the wee hours of the morning, she rings up the register for a lot of truckers shopping in the store or buying fuel at the gas station.
“I like the change. I’m looking forward to that extra hour of sleep,” Bednarz said last week.
The Rapid City woman does say she now will come to work and leave for home in darkness, but it doesn’t bother her.
“Every job I’ve had has been a night job,” she said. “There are always pluses to the time change at this time of year.”
But two of her colleagues emphatically disagreed. Beach and Dryden see the change as another disruption in their busy lives. Both men have second jobs that put them behind the wheel of motor vehicles during the daylight hours.
“She just doesn’t get it. It’s an extra hour we have to work,” Beach said of the time change.
A self-described night person, Beach, 42, has worked the nightshift at the Windmill for the past 18 months. After finishing his workday at the truck stop, he begins his second job as a delivery driver for Steaks, Etc.
“It’s going to be real interesting,” Beach said of his adjustment to the time change.
Dryden, 37, hadn’t realized the time change happened this month. He echoed Beach’s sentiments about dreading to turn his clock back one hour. Although he tries to keep his sleeping cycle at about the same hours year round, he fears that by the last hour of his second job he will feel exhausted.
“I drive a truck in the afternoons, and it’s going to be an extra hour of work for me,” Dryden said.
Contact Jomay Steen at 394-8418 or jomay.steen@rapidcityjournal.com.
Tips for getting asleep
Dr. Alan Kelts of Rapid City Regional Hospital’s Sleep Health Center offers these tips for those who might be struggling to sleep because of the time change.
* Exercise three to four hours before going to sleep; it helps relieve anxiety and stress.
* Cut down on the distractions: Use snoring aids for the spouse, turn off the TV, darken the room and switch off the music.
* Pay attention to your creature comforts. Is it too warm? Too cold? Adjust the thermostat or pile on the blankets.
* Move family pets out of the bedroom and into the basement, garage or outdoor kennel.
* Take a warm bath before bed to help set the mood for sleep as well as relax muscles.
* Eat or drink milk products, which have moderate amounts of carbohydrate in the form of lactose, which raises our serotonin levels and causes us to feel sleepy.
* Remove that glowing clock dial from sight; it will only cause more anxiety.
* If troubled by aches and pains, take a pain reliever.
* If you need moving air, use a small fan.
* Try reading in bed.
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