What to Do This Week to Get Your Body Ready for the Time Change



Our bodies and brains know what time it is even without looking at a clock. We get sleepy at night and hungry during the day...and then a time change comes along and throws us for a loop. With one of those time changes fast approaching, here’s how you can prepare your body. 

 

ADJUST YOUR BEDTIME NOW 

Get ready for the change by delaying your bedtime routine just a tad. If you go to bed 15 minutes later each day, you won’t have as much of a sudden shock when the time officially changes on November 7th. 

 

EAT ON THE NEW SCHEDULE 

Use the old traveler’s trick of eating according to your destination’s time zone to help shift your internal clock in the right direction. If you normally eat dinner at 6 p.m., shift to eating at 6:30 p.m. to ease yourself into the change. 

 

GET LIGHT AT THE RIGHT TIMES 

Daylight is a powerful tool for adjusting our circadian rhythms, as anybody who has used a light box to manage wintertime mental health problems knows. Normally you use your light box in the morning. The DIY alternative is to simply go for a walk in the morning sunshine. You don’t want to mess with this by using the light box in the evening, but you can keep yourself on track by getting daylight at the times of day it makes sense, especially in the morning. So, keep going for those morning walks, and maybe make an extra effort to avoid staring into a screen late at night. 

 

DON’T GET TOO EXCITED ABOUT THAT “EXTRA HOUR” 

It’s great that we’re going to get an extra nighttime hour, but thinking of it as an “extra” hour in our day can make it tempting to find a way to use that hour. Don’t stay up late just because you got a freebie.