How to Survive Daylight Saving Time

Summary

The Wirecutter Show: How to Survive Daylight Saving Time Release Date: March 4, 2025

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Introduction In this special bonus episode of The Wirecutter Show, hosted by Rosie Guerin and co-hosted by Kyra Blackwell, the team delves into the annual challenge of adjusting to Daylight Saving Time (DST). With the upcoming shift on March 9th, the hosts explore the implications of "springing forward" and provide expert advice on mitigating the negative effects associated with this time change.

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Understanding Daylight Saving Time Rosie introduces the topic by highlighting that DST begins on March 9th, lasting until November, during which clocks are set forward by one hour. While often perceived as minor inconveniences, DST has more profound impacts on our health and daily routines.

Kyra’s Insights on Circadian Rhythms Kyra explains the biological disruptions caused by the one-hour shift:

"Studies have shown that even something as slight as a one-hour time shift can disrupt our circadian rhythms, which is basically just our body's internal 24-hour clock that follows the sun." [02:48]

This misalignment between the social clock and the body’s internal clock can result in jet lag-like symptoms, including difficulty falling asleep or waking up, and an increase in health risks such as car accidents, heart attacks, and strokes during the transition period.

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The Origins and Criticism of DST The conversation shifts to the rationale behind DST. Contrary to popular belief, Kyra debunks the myth that farmers benefit from DST:

"Farmers actually notoriously hate daylight saving because it's completely opposed to their schedules, which follows the sun..." [04:10]

Instead, DST primarily benefits large corporations, including gas companies and retail sectors, by extending evening daylight and encouraging consumer spending. This shift results in approximately eight months of DST compared to 4.5 months of Standard Time, despite evidence suggesting that Standard Time is more aligned with human health and safety.

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Health Implications of DST Kyra emphasizes that Standard Time is the optimal choice for health and safety:

"A 2024 study found that standard time, which is what we're leaving right now to enter Daylight saving time, is the optimal choice for health and for safety following the sun’s clock." [04:56]

The extended period in DST exacerbates the negative health impacts, making it more than just a minor inconvenience for many individuals.

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Strategies to Adjust to DST Kyra offers practical advice to help listeners adapt to the time shift smoothly:

1. Gradual Sleep Schedule Adjustment Begin shifting your bedtime earlier in small increments:

   "Start shifting in 15-minute increments starting on Wednesday, so your body is ready to sleep by 9pm that Saturday before the time switch happens." [05:22]

2. Maintain Consistent Eating Schedules Align meal times with the new sleep schedule to prevent digestion from interfering with sleep:

   "If you're going to be going to sleep earlier, that means you need to eat a little bit earlier." [05:22]

3. Limit Stimulants Before Bed Avoid caffeine and alcohol at least six hours before bedtime to promote better sleep quality:

   "Don't do things like drink caffeine or alcohol before going to bed, especially caffeine." [05:22]

4. Optimize Bedroom Temperature Maintain a cool environment to signal your body that it's time to sleep:

   "The optimal sleep temperature is between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit." [06:45]

5. Regulate Light Exposure

   • Evening: Reduce exposure to bright lights to encourage melatonin production.
   • Morning: Increase sunlight exposure to reset the body’s internal clock.

   "Kill as much light as possible in the early evenings... get as much sunlight as possible as soon as possible in the morning." [06:54]

   Solutions include using blackout curtains or eye masks in the evening and utilizing sunrise alarm clocks to simulate natural light in the morning:

   "Use a sunrise alarm clock to basically simulate warm sunlight in your room when you're waking up in the morning." [08:58]

6. Enhance Morning Activity Engage in physical activities like running or yoga to boost alertness and signal the start of the day:

   "Do something active, that is the best thing you can do for your body during this time." [09:34]

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Conclusion Kyra encapsulates the essence of adjusting to DST with a simple yet effective mantra:

"Light, light, light. Block it at night, get it in the morning." [10:20]

The episode wraps up with Rosie thanking Kyra for her insightful tips and hinting at future topics, such as vacuums. Listeners are encouraged to visit the Wirecutter website for more detailed product recommendations and coverage related to DST.

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Notable Quotes

• Kyra Blackwell [02:48]:

  "Studies have shown that even something as slight as a one-hour time shift can disrupt our circadian rhythms, which is basically just our body's internal 24-hour clock that follows the sun."

• Kyra Blackwell [04:10]:

  "Farmers actually notoriously hate daylight saving because it's completely opposed to their schedules, which follows the sun..."

• Kyra Blackwell [04:56]:

  "A 2024 study found that standard time, which is what we're leaving right now to enter Daylight saving time, is the optimal choice for health and for safety following the sun’s clock."

• Kyra Blackwell [05:22]:

  "Start shifting in 15-minute increments starting on Wednesday, so your body is ready to sleep by 9pm that Saturday before the time switch happens."

• Kyra Blackwell [06:45]:

  "The optimal sleep temperature is between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit."

• Kyra Blackwell [10:20]:

  "Light, light, light. Block it at night, get it in the morning."

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Further Resources For more information on Daylight Saving Time and the products recommended by Kyra, visit nytimes.com/wirecutter or check the show notes for direct links.

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Production Credits The Wirecutter Show is executive produced by Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel, with engineering support from Matty Mazziello and Nick Pittman. Original music is by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Alicia Ba Itup, and Diane Wong. Wirecutter's Deputy Publisher and General Manager is Cliff Levy, and Ben Fruman serves as Editor-in-Chief.

Transcript

[Rosie Guerin]

Hey, it's Rosie from the Wirecutter Show. And this is a special bonus episode called how to Survive Daylight Saving Time. This coming Sunday, March 9, marks the start of Daylight Saving Time, or DST, the time of year we spring ahead and advance our clocks forward one hour. We spend the majority of our year in DST and will be in DST all the way to November when we revert back to Standard Time. For most people, these biannual time changes are simply part of life minor inconveniences. But there's a bit more to it than that. Scientists and researchers have studied the effects of time change into DST and found it can negatively impact our health. Kyra, the co host of our show, has reported on sleep, hygiene and in particular the things you can do to prepare your body for the time shift and some tips on how best to adjust. I'm going to talk with her all about it after a quick break. We'll be right back.

[Somini Sengupta]

This is Somini Sengupta. I'm a reporter for the New York Times. I've covered nine conflicts, written about earthquakes, terror attacks, droughts, floods, many humanitarian crises. My job is to bear witness. Right now I'm writing about climate change and I'm trying to answer some really big and urgent questions about life on a hotter planet, like who is most vulnerable to climate change? Should we redesign our cities? Should we be eating differently? What happens to the millions of people who live by the coast as the oceans rise? To make sense of this, I talk to climate scientists, inventors, activists. Mostly I document the impact of global warming and that impact is highly, highly unequal. My colleagues and I are doing our best to answer complicated questions like these, but we can't do that without our subscribers. If you'd like to subscribe, go to nytimes.com subscribe and thank you.

[Rosie Guerin]

Hello, Kyra.

[Kyra]

Hi, Kyra.

[Rosie Guerin]

I understand we're about to head into your least favorite part of the year.

[Kyra]

Yeah, I really don't like this part of the year, which is when we start Daylight Saving Time and, and it starts on March 9th at 2am local time this year.

[Rosie Guerin]

So the saying is spring forward, fall back. That means we're going to be losing an hour of sleep right when daylight saving starts.

[Kyra]

Right, Right. But it's actually worse than that. Some people kind of look forward to this time because the evenings are brighter and that's kind of fun in the summer especially. But it does come at a cost. Studies have shown that even something as slight as a one hour time shift can disrupt our circadian rhythms, which is basically just our body's internal 24 hour clock that follows the sun. This can lead to jet lag type symptoms, and that's just because your body clock isn't aligning with the social clock. So basically your phone will say that it's 3pm, but our bodies know it's actually 2pm and this mismatch can lead to a number of health issues. You might feel it when you have a hard time falling asleep or a hard time waking up in the morning, but after the spring shift, specifically, according to the National Institutes of Health, car accidents, heart attacks and certain kinds of strokes spike during this time.

[Rosie Guerin]

So the natural next question is, why do we do this to ourselves? I mean, for all these years, I just do it. Assume that this is part of everybody's life. But why?

[Kyra]

I mean, it's not like we, the individuals are doing it. But something that you might have heard is that farmers need it. But that's actually not true. Daylight saving really benefits big corporations. It's about, you know, gas companies, golf clubs and gardening tools being sold more because people are outside in the summertime spending money.

[Rosie Guerin]

Aha.

[Kyra]

Mm. About capitalism. But farmers actually notoriously hate daylight saving because it's completely opposed to their schedules, which follows the sun, as our body should be doing today.

[Rosie Guerin]

Right, right, right.

[Kyra]

So we actually get 4.5 months of standard time, which is the actual right time, and then almost eight months of daylight saving. So that's so much more time in dst. And most people think that this time shift twice a year is, you know, at worst, annoying and confusing. You figure you gain an hour of sleep in the fall, even though it gets dark in the evenings, but then you get longer days in the summer. But actually, daylight saving is pretty bad for us year round. A 2024 study found that standard time, which is what we're leaving right now to enter Daylight saving time, is the.

[Rosie Guerin]

Optimal choice for health and for safety following the sun. Yes, essentially. So it can feel like you're trying to pull yourself through severe jet lag. And it's so hard for me to fall asleep at a reasonable time around the shift. So as we're getting ready to prep for this time shift, what is your best advice to help people get to bed at a reasonable hour and sort of mitigate some of these effects?

[Kyra]

So let's say you usually go to bed by 10pm you want to start shifting your routine on Wednesday before the shift. That happens that Sunday morning. So that would be tomorrow in this case. You got to get on it and all you're going to do is just shift in 15 minute increments starting on Wednesday, so your body is ready to sleep by 9pm that Saturday before the time switch happens. And you just do that in 15 minute increments every day. And the same goes for your eating schedule too. So if you're going to be going to sleep earlier, that means you need to eat a little bit earlier. So your body isn't trying to digest that food as you're trying to wind down, because that will keep you up. It also might seem like common sense, but don't do things like drink caffeine or alcohol before going to bed, especially caffeine. You want to give yourself at least six hours to fully digest that before you start your wind down routine.

[Rosie Guerin]

So a lot of this stuff is guidance for good sleep hygiene in general. And also it seems aligned with how you might try and shift to adjust to a new time zone if you're going on vacation or you're moving somewhere.

[Kyra]

Totally. And every expert that I've talked to about basically just how to have a healthy sleep routine, their biggest advice is just to get a good sleep routine. And then it's much easier to help modify or adjust it as needed. And then if you're just having a really hard time falling asleep earlier. In general, there are a couple of hacks that you can use to kind of trick your body into winding down for the night.

[Rosie Guerin]

What do you got?

[Kyra]

One that I use every single night that my partner hates is temperature regulation. So the optimal sleep temperature is between 60 and 67 degrees Fahrenheit.

[Rosie Guerin]

No way.

[Kyra]

Yeah, it's cold.

[Rosie Guerin]

That seems really low.

[Kyra]

It's cold. I'm not even gonna lie. But then when you get into your bed and it's all warm and you have the right covers, it's kind of nice. I enjoy it now. But that temperature range has been proven to signal to your body that it's time to shut down. And it will start to do that. Another thing that you can do to jumpstart that is if you take a warm shower at night, when you get out that shower again, your body temperature will drop. And that will also signal to your body that it's time to go to sleep. Something else that is really beneficial during this time is light regulation. So you want to kill as much light as possible in the early evenings so you're not staying awake later into the night. And then when you wake up in the morning, because you know it's so dark in the beginning of daylight saving time, you Just want to get as much sunlight as possible as soon as possible. So blackout curtains are really helpful for keeping that light out. And then when you wake up, just open them up, get some sun, flood.

[Rosie Guerin]

Your place with sun.

[Kyra]

Mm. If you don't want to go out and buy blackout curtains, I get it. If you have an eye mask laying around or even like a dark T shirt would work.

[Rosie Guerin]

And we'll throw links to the eye mask and blackout curtain recommendations in our show notes.

[Kyra]

Mm. And then everybody knows this at this point, even if we don't follow it, myself included. But try to limit devices at night because the blue light again signals to your brain that it's wake up time, not go to sleep time. So that means, you know, your tv, your laptop, your cell phones, they all emit this blue light that is keeping your brain awake. So try to kill that as much as possible.

[Rosie Guerin]

What my kids call waking up time, is it waking up time?

[Kyra]

Aw, that's cute.

[Rosie Guerin]

Or in the even, is it time for nap? So again, a lot of this guidance really is general sleep hygiene guidance, but really becomes even more important when you're trying to adjust your body to experience this time shift away from the sun's clock.

[Kyra]

Yeah.

[Rosie Guerin]

So what about when you wake up? I mean, beyond getting the sun in there as boldly as possible, I'm worried it's gonna feel impossible to get my kids out of bed in the morning when it's still dark. Nevermind myself.

[Kyra]

Now it is really hard to fight that early morning grogginess because it's so dark. So I live in a basement apartment. My bedroom is in the basement. And something that I use year round is a sunrise alarm clock to basically just simulate warm sunlight in my room when I'm waking up in the morning. I like the hatch, but our official pick is the Philips alarm clock. And then also, you know, this isn't the sun, but turn on the lights, get up out of bed, put your phone alarm somewhere far. So you have to get out of bed to go turn it off.

[Rosie Guerin]

Anything to sing, Signal your brain that the lights are on. It's day. It might not feel like day in your body, but it is day.

[Kyra]

Exactly. Anything to tell your body to go get it. This is a bit too far even for me. But if you can get out into the sun and do something active, that is the best thing you can do for your body during this time. Go for a run, do some yoga next to a window. Just anything to really get your body moving and signaling again that it's time to start your day.

[Rosie Guerin]

Low hanging fruit. Maybe you could walk out if you have a balcony, if you have a front door, stepping out with your morning coffee just to sort of get yourself flooded with a little bit of sun is gonna again help signal your brain and your body that it's morning, it's time to rock.

[Kyra]

Exactly.

[Rosie Guerin]

Okay, so, Kyra, if you could recommend one thing, just one thing that is gonna help pull people through this shift, what is it gonna be?

[Kyra]

I mean, I'm going to sound like a broken record, but it's light, light, light. Block it at night, get it in the morning.

[Rosie Guerin]

Love it. All right, Kyra, thanks for the tips.

[Kyra]

Of course.

[Rosie Guerin]

Next time we meet, I think we're going to talk about vacuums.

[Kyra]

I'm excited.

[Rosie Guerin]

Stay tuned. If you want to find out more about Wirecutter's coverage on Daylight Saving Time or if you want to check out the products Kyra recommended Today, go to nytimes.com wirecutter or you can find a link in the show notes. Wishing you a peaceful transition into Daylight saving Time. Thanks so much for listening. The Wirecutter show is executive produced by me, Rosie Guerin and produced by Abigail Keel. Engineering support from Matty Mazziello and Nick Pittman. Original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano, Alicia Ba Itup and Diane Wong. Wirecutter's deputy publisher and general manager is Cliff Levy. Ben Fruman is Wirecutter's editor in chief. Thank you for listening.