Day Light Savings Time and Your Health

----------------UPDATE---------------

SINCE PUBLICATION OF THIS POST, THE UNITED STATES SENATE UNANIMOUSLY PASSED A BILL TO GET RID OF DAY LIGHT SAVINGS TIME. #INFLUENCER

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Tomorrow is day light savings time or return to standard time or whatever it is, we lose an hour of sleep -- when the clock hits 2 AM, time magically becomes 3 AM.

When the alarm goes off at 7 a.m., it's actually 6 a.m. to our bodies. On a Sunday, it's easy to absorb, but come Monday when society expects us to be in the office at 8 a.m., the time change hits a little different.

This lack of sleep has some serious negative effects on your health. Take this stat as an example...

Heart attacks increase 24% the Monday after day light savings time...

This highlights two things. First, how crazy important sleep is to your health, not only in the short term, but in the long term as well with increased risk for all sorts of disease including dementia, cancer, and heart disease.

Next, it highlights just how fragile our bodies are. The problem isn't losing that one hour of sleep during daylight savings time, but that Americans are likely already not getting enough sleep anyway. So when that hour is taken away, it's the straw that breaks the camel's back and American's heart valves.

Some Strategies to Mitigate DST

There are some short term and long term mitigation strategies.

Short-Term...

Leading up to daylight savings time, a few days ahead of time try to get to bed earlier and get up a little later.

Day of, set your alarm forward a half hour or an hour ahead of time.

Day of, do things that will encourage a good full night's sleep. Get some exercise. Have some laughs with friends. Cut off alcohol, weed, and caffeine intake at least 5 hours before bed. Do something challenging that will make you feel proud and accomplished going to bed. Relax a little before bed.

Long-Term...

Do things year round to make you more resilient.

Increased muscle mass is linked to better hormone regulation, mood regulation, and sleep.

Increased muscle mass was recently shown to increase life longevity -- in a study of 480,000 people, mostly Americans.

A study showed that just 3 seconds of intense flexing increased muscle mass in individuals (so next time you stop and flex in the mirror, you can justify it easier!!)

Do things that will encourage a normal sleep schedule -- cut alcohol/weed out within a few hours of bed, reduce or eliminate your caffeine intake, stop looking at your phone in bed, develop a night time routine so your body knows it's time to start winding down.

Basically, what I'm saying is, get your exercise in! Get your sleep! Surround yourself with good community!

Struggling to get those things? I suggest joining me at my Semi-Private training sessions at Praxis Strength in Nashville's Buena Vista neighborhood. These are mostly like personal training sessions, but with a group of people. So you get the lift, the coaching, the community, and accountability all for a portion of what would cost for personal training!

To get started -- shoot me an email at strengthcoachsam@gmail.com and we can get you started!