How to Recover Sleep after Daylight Savings

Get your alarm clocks ready. We spring forward with daylight savings this Sunday, March 8th. If you're worried about that lost hour of sleep, you are not alone. We are now joined by Doctor Jose Cologne, sleep medicine physician with Lee health. Thank you so much for joining us today, doctor. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. This is the time to remind everyone to turn their clocks forward on Sunday, meaning we lose a precious hour of sleep. Doctor, can you explain how impactful is this? When we actually miss an hour of sleep? You know, so, sleep is important. It's vital to to our our body, to our brain, to our our learning. And when time is being changed, it does take some time to adjust. And typically when someone goes to a different time zone, it takes about a day to adjust. And and interestingly, with with daylight savings, it may take, you know, a couple days to, to adjust. One of the things that I, that I try to, to emphasize is to is to try to not lose that that hour of, of sleep. You know, to try to, to, to get the bed at, at a, at a more decent time as well as also, wake at, at irregular time and maybe split the difference. You know, lose, a half hour of sleep and, a half hour of, of wakefulness and, in the day. I'm curious if you see any uptick in people complaining about their sleep habits when we get to this daylight savings time. When it's lighter outside later. It does take some people a little bit more time to, to to get to the sleep. I know that there's complaints when when it's dark early, however, that that darkness is what allows our, our body's natural melatonin to, to come out. Now, I hear there are some people that say they live their lives and they never get enough quality sleep. They go on 5 or 6 or seven hours. How is it possible, and why is it so important that we do get the rest that we need each night? Yeah. So our brain goes through different cycles that we need both for, learning as well as our heart and, and for repair and, and, the quality of the sleep is actually more important than the quantity number of, of the sleep. A very interesting fact is, if you look at people who have short sleep time of chronically getting five hours or less and, and you compare them with people who have long sleep time of 12 hours or more. Believe it or not, the the long sleep time actually has, higher mortality. They're dying more than twice as much, you know, so the, the the quality is more important than the actual quantity number. Now, when we do chronically get five hours or less sleep, you know, we do have some, some, you know, deleterious effects, you know, can affect memory and and cognition, but more important again, is the quality and also, having an established wake time. If you take a look at the people who have too much sleep, 12 hours, they're chronically actually getting a lot of daytime sleep. And their sleep wake cycle is is irregular. Now, I was surprised when I saw these numbers. The centers for Disease Control reported that almost 40% of adults in Florida don't get enough sleep. Now, do you have any advice for improving sleep habits to sleep environment? So when it comes to improving both sleep habits and sleep environments, you know, I like to emphasize to, to do things that that relax you. I don't like instructions such as do something boring. Nobody wants to do anything boring. It's really, you know, that just the thought of that, you know, nauseated people. But but do things that that are relaxing. So I'm going to ask you, a couple questions. And I have a point to. To what? To what I'm getting at. Do you drive? Yes. Of course. When? When you drive. Are you trying to stay awake, alert, and look at the road? Or are you trying to fall asleep? I'm trying to stay awake and. And alert, of course. All right. When you drive, do you sometimes listen to the radio or Spotify? 100%. I'm always listening to something. Can you see how you're learning to associate that radio with being alert? Some people, when they're driving in, they're tired. What do they do? They turn up the radio. So, let's just say that you're awake and you're in bed and you're not asleep, and you see how it would be a bad idea to listen to that same radio station that keeps you alert. Why is that? 100%. Okay. So now do people get on on cell phones? Snapchat on, Facebook or group text TikTok because it is a boring thing to do or because it is mentally stimulating. Well, I think people tend to think scrolling is kind of boring, but it's also mentally stimulating. I mean, yes, it's passive, but it's mentally stimulating, which is why you shouldn't do that before bed. So I like to, you know, I say explanations are more important than instructions. And what we should try to do is, is to, you know, environment and habits is to try to find things that, that calm us, soothe us and avoid things that are stimulating. I always rely on white noise. I use that quite a bit. So that helps me. Excellent. White noise can be, calming. Or, you know, sounds like rain and ocean, can be very helpful. Now, I try to avoid water sounds and children because they could pee their beds. Oh. That's with it. With them. I prefer more like, earth tones, drum beats, you know, earth tones, wind and the dark room and cool. Those are all, great ways to help induce sleep. Very true. Yes. Now, what are some warning signs, that someone should look for if they're not getting the rest they need? When do they know that? They need to see someone like yourself and get professional help. So a big one is actually, if they are getting adequate sleep and they're still tired in the daytime, or they're having problems with waking up or sleep inertia, that could be an underlying sign of a sleep disorder at night, such as obstructive sleep apnea or a disorder of daytime somnolence such as, narcolepsy. That that's a big one. All right. Anything else you want to share with us about maybe how we can better adjust to springing forward this weekend? Started the day before. You know, you know that that you're going to have to put the change the alarm. So start the wake up on a regular basis and, do calming things when when it is time to, to go to bed and, and avoid mentally stimulating, things. Well, thank you so much for sharing, all of your information and expertise. Thank you so much, doctor. All right. Have a great day. Thank you for having me.