UC Davis

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Amy Quinton 

Hey, Marianne.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Hey, Amy.

Amy Quinton 

It's a special time of year for a special bonus episode of Unfold.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Yeah, a bonus... Wait, why are we having a bonus episode of Unfold?

Amy Quinton 

Well, first, do you know what I've been doing for the last several weeks?

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Maybe writing an Unfold podcast episode? Perhaps stressing out?

Amy Quinton 

Well, yes, of course. But emotionally I've been full of dread. I've been dreading,

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Dreading. Oh, no. What are you dreading?

Amy Quinton 

 The time change.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Oh, that's right. It's nearly spring. The old move the clocks ahead by an hour. When does that happen, again?

Amy Quinton 

just friggin' randomly.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Amy, you're so predictable sometimes.

Amy Quinton 

Well, technically, it happens on the second Sunday of every March at 2 a.m. And this year, we'll be springing into daylight saving time on March 12.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Yeah, so we lose an hour of sleep. It's not great. I mean, a lot of people don't like daylight saving time. But you actually dread it?

Amy Quinton 

I just can't adjust. In fact, I feel like I'm in chronic maladjustment until November, when we turn the clocks back.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

I am sorry, that sounds kind of terrible. It's not my favorite. That's for sure. And I hate it a little more since becoming a parent. I have to admit kids' schedules really out of whack when the clocks change - something no one told me before I became a parent.

Amy Quinton 

Yeah I actually didn't know that either until recently.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Yeah. I always thought that the younger they were, the worse it was. But I recently heard that teenagers struggle even more with it just in time for me to soon have a teenager, right? Wish me luck. But listen, Amy, don't kill me for saying this but daylight saving time does make it lighter at night in the summer. And I do like that.

Amy Quinton 

Because you have a kid who likes to go outside and play.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Well, don't you like to go outside and play too? But seriously, it's great to be able to like to walk the dog at night and not have it be so dark.

Amy Quinton 

Uh-huh.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

 I can tell I'm not convincing you.

Amy Quinton 

No, which is why I talked to Heinrich Gompf. He's a sleep researcher at UC Davis Health and is also a member of the sleep Research Society. I just wanted to figure out why it is that some people, like me, just can't adjust. And as you know, a lot of this has to do with our circadian rhythm.

Heinrich Gompf 

So we have these circadian rhythms. They're approximately 24 hours long. They've been with us evolutionarily since the very first organisms billions of years ago. And they are so important, you know, to anticipate things that happened during the day, when there's food available, when there's predators around that sort of thing. You need to have an internal clock to anticipate those things.

Amy Quinton 

And Gompf says this internal clock is located in the suprachaismatic nucleus of the brain. But I don't want to get too technical here.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Go ahead and get technical as long as you can pronounce it, then I won't have to.

Amy Quinton 

Well, it's in the hypothalamus region of the brain, which controls sleep wake cycles. The suprachaismatic nucleus also, interestingly, controls a gland that produces melatonin.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Uh huh. The stuff that makes you sleepy,

Amy Quinton 

Right. So these circadian rhythms are really our master clock.

Heinrich Gompf 

And it's there to adapt slowly to changes in the lighting throughout the year, the seasonal differences. It doesn't do that well when you switch it very quickly you like when you travel across time zones, or when you have the switch from standard time to savings time in the spring.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

So it's why we get jet lag, our circadian rhythm is all thrown off.

Amy Quinton 

Yeah. And he says kids have longer phases of these rhythms. So that's why they can be particularly affected by any change in the clock.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Don't I know it.

Amy Quinton 

But most importantly, these rhythms are reset by light. Because this area of the brain, the suprachaismatic nucleus, gets input directly from the eyes,

Heinrich Gompf 

Those rhythms do get reset every day. Particularly, the light in the morning is important after the time change, after the clock change, that happens at a later time relative to the nominal clock time. So if you normally wake up at seven o'clock in the morning, your internal system is maybe wanting to have a certain amount of light, but you won't get that light until about eight o'clock in the morning.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

That makes so much sense. After the clock change, we're forced to get up an hour earlier and it's still not light enough to really wake ourselves up.

Amy Quinton 

Right? Gompf says it's a disconnect between our internal system and our external world. So it can take us several days to several weeks to adjust - if we ever really adjusted all. It sounds ridiculous, right? It's only an hour.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

I mean, yeah, it kind of does sound ridiculous. But so that makes me think about adjusting to new time zones. That seems easier. You know, maybe a day or two and you're usually okay. So are you telling me jetlag isn't as tough as the time change?

Amy Quinton 

Gompf says the time zone changes are a bit different.

Heinrich Gompf 

The thing is when you do travel across time zones, at least what you have is you arrive at a place where the sun rises and sets at an appropriate time. Whereas if you change the clock time, but just an hour, you don't have that, right. So your circadian rhythm is more confused than it really needs to be.

Amy Quinton 

And as you may or may not know, Marianne, there are health consequences to having this internal clock confusion.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Yeah, I've always heard that there is an increase in heart attacks.

Amy Quinton 

Not just heart attacks.

Heinrich Gompf 

So you have more car accidents, in part, probably because people are driving to work in the dark. But you also have regular accidents happening at a greater frequency. So there's more people going into the emergency room in the first few days after the time change. And yes, more heart attacks, more strokes as well.

Amy Quinton 

That's because of the stress of the time change. And guess what other problems come with a clock change, especially because of a lack of light in the morning?

Marianne Russ Sharp 

 What?

Amy Quinton 

Gompf says people's satisfaction with life goes down for about a third of the population for about two weeks after the time change.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

So people like you get depressed, huh?

Amy Quinton 

Yes, me too. It's a third of the population Marianne. For two weeks! And mostly strangely among men with jobs.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

I'm really sorry. But okay, this is not good. Isn't there an effort to make the clock change permanent to eliminate the switching that causes all of these problems and maybe just stay in daylight saving time all year?

Amy Quinton 

I asked him that. Let me ask you this. There are those who argue for making daylight saving time permanent?

Heinrich Gompf 

(laughs)

Amy Quinton 

You're laughing?

Heinrich Gompf 

Yeah. Yes, there are those who are arguing that. So that's something that came up relatively recently, when Marco Rubio a couple of years ago proposed it, and it was passed unanimously in the Senate. I think there's certainly in the allure for some people to have more light in the afternoons. So they can do more when they're home and not at work. And it sounds pretty interesting. But it's not good.

Amy Quinton 

I just love that he just laughed.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

It's the most genuine answer I've heard in ages. I kind of felt like he was talking straight to me. But why is it not good, at least from a scientific perspective?

Amy Quinton 

Well, Gompf gave kudos to our politicians for realizing there is a problem with the clock change. He just says it's a change in the wrong direction. Instead, he says we should stay on our wintertime clock or standard time.

Heinrich Gompf 

The reason for that is we're, continental US, is in the mid latitudes, and vastly more people would be helped if they're on standard time all year long, instead of on Saving Time all year long.

Amy Quinton 

He says you lose something valuable with Saving Time.

Heinrich Gompf 

You don't get any sunlight until well after you start work, or most people who start working in the morning, you know, sunlight doesn't start until 9-10 in the morning.

Amy Quinton 

And we are not vampires.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

That you know of. But most of us would have some pretty dark mornings during saving time and maybe be in a bit of a fog as well.

Amy Quinton 

Yeah.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

This sounds kind of familiar. Have we tried this before? Maybe during World War II?

Amy Quinton 

Yeah. And during the energy crisis in the 1970s. And guess what?

Heinrich Gompf 

People hated it. It was extremely unpopular to be on Saving Time all year long.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Okay, he has a strong opinion.

Amy Quinton 

Yeah, so does the Sleep Research Society, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the National Sleep Foundation. I could go on. But of course, not everyone agrees. And Gompf does admit that in a few places in the continental US people might benefit from staying on daylight saving time all year long.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

I'd like to know where those places are.

Amy Quinton 

In places where latitudes are higher, so further north or south, and further on either side of the time zone, because the clock goes by longitude in a time zone. He mentioned that in Boston, for example, where I used to live, the sun rises at five o'clock in the summertime. If Boston were on standard time, all year round, it would rise at four. That's early.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

That's really early. I don't know about you, but I'm not super productive at 4 a.m. I do feel like this is way more complex than I thought. But for now we're stuck with the way it is with that clock change. So did Gompf have any suggestions on how we can prepare? Is there anything we ca n do?

Amy Quinton 

Of course not.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Oh, Amy really?

Amy Quinton 

Well, it depends. I mean, some things seem to work for some individuals and others not so much.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

You might think maybe going to bed earlier would help. That's hard for some of us to do. I'm a night owl, but maybe trying to do that for a few days before the clock changes.

Amy Quinton 

Yeah. Have you ever tried that?

Marianne Russ Sharp 

No.

Amy Quinton 

Well, it doesn't work for me. And Gompf says it may not work for everyone.

Heinrich Gompf 

Another thing to do is to try and make sure that you get out early in the morning and get as much daylight early in the day as you can.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

So he means getting daylight early on the day we spring forward. So I'm thinking about this. That's Sunday at 2am. So on Sunday.

Amy Quinton 

On Sunday morning, right. And just when you want to sleep.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

I mean, I guess if it helps, it helps.

Amy Quinton 

Yeah, what I did last year was go on vacation three time zones ahead of the one I'm currently in. I stayed a week and then by the time I got back, springing ahead an hour wasn't a big deal. But scientifically speaking, that probably really didn't help.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

You know what, it sounds really smart to me, Amy, you just said, springing ahead an hour wasn't a big deal. I think you found the magic bullet, and you got a vacation out of it.

Amy Quinton 

That is true. Gompf did mention one thing that may help and it's advice I hadn't heard before. It has to do with food.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Food? Maybe a change in the diet?

Amy Quinton 

He says food can reset your circadian rhythm. So he suggested changing the time you eat. Best idea would be to fast a bit in the evening before the clock change or eat a light meal early.

Heinrich Gompf 

Because most people like they come out on the day after the clock change. Right? They're like, I normally have lunch at noon, right? I'm just not hungry yet. So I'm going to have lunch at one, you know, try and make a conscious effort of actually eating at that time. And that might help some people get through it a little bit faster.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

In other words, if it's noon, which is typically lunchtime for you, you should eat then even though your circadian clock thinks it's 11 a.m. and you're not really hungry yet.

Amy Quinton 

Right.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Okay, that makes sense. Did he offer any other advice? You know, is there a solution to this ongoing debate that might keep some people or most people happy?

Amy Quinton 

Oh yes, you know, he said, if we don't switch permanently, perhaps consider having just more of the year under Standard Time.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

So instead of changing the clock in mid-March, like we're going to do shortly, make it a week later?

Amy Quinton 

Yeah. Or even a month later and a month earlier on the other side. So mid-April and mid-October instead of March and November. He says that might prevent some of the radical changes in light that we're dealing with now.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

Wow. I mean, I'd welcome a solution that cuts down on the chaos of the clock change when it comes to bedtime for kids and for a lot of us adults, too.

Amy Quinton 

Yeah. Well, you know what, speaking of time, it's time to wrap up.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

You're so clever. We hope you enjoyed this special bonus episode of Unfold, and good luck trying these strategies when the clock changes.

Amy Quinton 

You can find more episodes from this season on the topic of health at our website. That's www.ucdavis.edu/unfold. I'm Amy Quinton.

Marianne Russ Sharp 

And I'm Marianne Russ Sharp. Thanks for listening.

Amy Quinton 

Unfold is a production of UC Davis. Original Music for Unfold comes from Damien Verette. And Curtis Jerome Haynes. Additional music comes from Blue Dot Sessions.