How are you sleeping? A new study found that the transition from daylight saving time to standard time, when an hour is gained overnight, was associated with a brief increase in sleep disturbances, such as difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep, but there was no such an association when an hour passed. it is lost in the change from standard time to daylight saving time. The study is published online in the May 3, 2023, issue of Neurology®The medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. It also found a small difference in the amount of sleep people get depending on the season.
“Sleep plays an essential role in maintaining good health, mood, cognition, job performance and social activity, and is influenced by the circadian rhythm, the internal clock that regulates bodily processes,” he said. study author Ron B. Postuma, MD, MSc, of McGill University, Montreal, Canada, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. “The good news is that the sleep disruptions we observed after the switch to standard time were brief and no longer evident two weeks after the switch.”
The study involved 30,097 people, ages 45 to 85, who completed a questionnaire about sleep duration and satisfaction, ability to fall asleep, ability to stay asleep, and excessive daytime sleepiness. Questions included: “During the past month, how often did it take you longer than 30 minutes to fall asleep?” and “During the past month, how often have you woken up in the middle of the night or too early in the morning and found it difficult to go back to sleep?” Those who responded three or more times per week to any of these questions were considered to have sleep problems.
For the switch to standard time in the fall, the researchers compared people who completed the questionnaire a week before the transition to those who completed it a week later. After adjusting for age, gender and location, they found that those who completed the survey one week after the transition had a 34% increased risk of sleep dissatisfaction, with 28% reporting sleep dissatisfaction compared to 23% of interviewees a week earlier. Those who completed the questionnaire a week later also had a two-fold increased risk of difficulty falling asleep, a 64% increased risk of difficulty staying asleep, and a two-fold increased risk of excessive sleepiness during waking hours.
For the spring DST transition, the researchers compared people who completed the questionnaire a week before the switch to those who completed it a week after. They found no difference in sleep problems. However, they found a nine-minute decrease in sleep duration one week after this transition.
The researchers looked at when the participants completed the questionnaire: spring, summer, fall, or winter. While they found no difference in sleep problems, they did find a small difference in sleep duration.
People who completed the questionnaire in summer had the shortest sleep duration, an average of 6.76 hours of sleep per day. People who completed the survey in winter had the longest sleep duration, an average of 6.84 hours of sleep per day, a difference of five minutes.
“As disruptive as these short-term transitions may seem, there may be little long-term implications of the repeated shift from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time.” Posthumous said. “However, previous research has linked transitions to and from DST with higher rates of accidents, as well as increased risk of stroke and heart attack. Future studies are needed that follow people over time.” , including people who live in areas with different light exposure and seasonal changes.”
One limitation of the study was that it only included middle-aged and older adults, and the results may not be the same for younger adults.
The study was funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research.
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