How daylight savings could impact your health

Gaining an hour of sleep might sound like a dream, but keeping yourself on a good sleep pattern could improve your health, especially with Daylight Savings starting this Saturday. 47 ABC spoke with Dr. Victor Gong of 75th Street Medical and he says, “Make sure you get a good night sleep if you want to adjust to this, some people will wake up a little earlier like 15 minutes every day until it happens.”

Now, if you’re not a heavy sleeper, Doctor Gong says you might want to consider using that extra hour to get healthy habits going. Dr. Gong tells 47 ABC, “This might actually be good a good time to wake up and get your exercise in.”

He recommends also trying to eat well, feeding your body the right nutrients to keep you going. Because of the time change, Dr. Gong says your circadian rhythm may be off. Circadian rhythm is the physical, mental and behavioral processes which happen in your body on a 24 hour cycle.

Dr. Gong tells 47 ABC, “Sleep affects your whole body from losing weight to being healthy to being alert so one of the major causes is it causes increased stress.”

Because we’re gaining an hour, that means there will be one less hour of light. Dr. Gong says it’s possible to get depression or seasonal defective disorder because it’s darker outside. Dr. Gong tells 47 ABC, “Being in the dark doesn’t trigger the right hormones so you generally feel a little more sad.”

So what can you do to get sleep patterns back? Dr. Gong tells 47 ABC, “Make sure your room is nice and dark so you can sleep well you should sleep at the same consistent time and wake up and the same consistent time.”

With the time change that means folks getting to sleep later than usual. Even though you can sleep in, not everyone can. Dr. Gong says to be mindful that lack of sleep can cause more workplace injuries and car crashes.