How Does The Clocks Going Back Affect Your Sleep Patterns?

Photo by Bhaskar Dutta via Getty Images

The winter time change is always more welcome than the summer robbing us of a precious hour, but what impact does this really have on our sleep?

We already feel a lot more tired as the sun drains out of the sky earlier and earlier, and it can be hard to find the motivation to do anything aside from eating potatoes.

HuffPost UK Lifestyle spoke to three sleep experts - Dr Nerina Ramlakhan, HuffPost UK Blogger and sleep and energy specialist at Nightingale Hospital, Professor Adrian Williams from The London Sleep Centre and Dr Sophie Bostock from Sleepio.

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So does the time change affect your sleep?

Dr Bostock says: "The clock change means an abrupt shift in the external cues which help our internal body clock to maintain a 24-hour circadian rhythm track.

"These external time cues are called ‘zeitgebers’, and include light, temperature, exercise and food/drink intake. It can take several days for our internal biological clock to re-synchronise with a new schedule, whether it's a clock change or a timezone difference. For some people, this desynchrony leads to disrupted sleep, and feeling tired during the day."

Professor Williams however doesn't believe the time change affects your sleep, but he does believe the seasons can affect it.

"The lack of light exposure can affect a proportion of people in terms of mood but the one hour change in time isn't particularly important. People end up getting the same amount of sleep."

Story continues below the slideshow:

7 Sleep Conditions

Sleep Paralysis(01 of07)

If you've ever drifted off to sleep or just woken up from sleep but were unable to move any part of your body -- spurring a sense that you are frozen in your bed -- you may have experienced sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis is more common in the seconds to minutes when we're first waking up, whether in the morning or in the middle of the night, Gehrman said. When we are in REM sleep, our muscles are paralyzed so that we don't act out our dreams. But with sleep paralysis, a part of the brain wakes sooner than the rest, giving a sense of wakefulness and alertness -- even though the body's muscles are still paralyzed, Gehrman explained. However, sleep paralysis isn't dangerous despite the unsettling feeling experienced by people who have been through it, according to Stanford University. To decrease the number of sleep paralysis episodes you have, stress reduction, getting enough hours of sleep a night and making sure you have a good sleep schedule could help. (credit:alamy)

REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (02 of07)

Opposite to sleep paralysis, REM sleep behavior disorder occurs when your brain is in REM sleep but your muscles are acting out your dreams, Gehrman explained.WebMD explains the signs of the disorder:

Dream-enacting behaviors include talking, yelling, punching, kicking, sitting, jumping from bed, arm flailing, and grabbing. An acute form may occur during withdrawal from alcohol or sedative-hypnotic drugs.

Stanford Sleep Disorders Clinic sleep specialist Tracy Kuo, Ph.D., told Everyday Health that this disorder could potentially be violent, especially if the person is kicking or punching his or her self or partner while sleeping. "Without treatment, it tends to get worse over time," she told Everyday Health. However, there are medications a person can take to help people relax their muscles when they sleep so that they don't have any muscle activity when they are in REM sleep, Everyday Health reported. REM Sleep Behavior Disorder has also been linked to neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's disease and multisystem atrophy, and seems to occur several years before these diseases, WebMD reported. (credit:alamy)

Sleep Walking And Talking (03 of07)

Similarly to sleep paralysis, sleep-walking and sleep-talking occur when part of the brain is awake but the rest of it is asleep, Gehrman said. "With sleep-walking, people are mostly asleep but you're engaging in what are usually kind of basic routine behaviors," Gehrman said. "So typically, people sleep walk and go to the bathroom, or go down to the kitchen and get something to eat, but it's all usually very routine." Because sleep-walking and sleep-talking occur in non-REM sleep, since non-REM sleep only produces bland, boring dreams, whatever the person is saying or acting out is not related to what they may actually be dreaming about, he said. However, Gehrman said that there is not yet a clear answer as to why we say or act out the things we do when we are sleep-walking or sleep-talking.Sleep-walking isn't inherently dangerous, but if a child is prone to sleepwalking, Honaker recommends that parents take safety precautions by locking windows, putting safety latches on doors, etc., so that sleep-walking children don't accidentally hurt themselves. (credit:alamy)

Bedwetting(04 of07)

Bedwetting, also known as enuresis, is defined as involuntary urination by a child who is older than age 5 or 6 (either in the day or night), according to the A.D.A.M. Medical Encyclopedia. Sarah Morsbach Honaker Ph.D., a pediatric sleep psychologist at the University of Louisville, told HuffPost that bedwetting is very common in children, and that most kids outgrow it as they get older, many times without any intervention.Honaker said a possible cause for bedwetting is maturational delay, meaning a child's body hasn't yet matured to maintain bladder control throughout the night."You wouldn't expect a 2-year-old to be dry throughout the night," Honaker told HuffPost. "For some kids, this ability matures later than others." In addition, some kids may just have a lower arousal threshold, meaning that it takes more to rouse them from sleep if their bladder is full, she said. "Because enuresis is outgrown, there's a tendency in some cases for healthcare providers to make the decision not to treat it," Honaker said. "However, there has been research to suggest it impacts self esteem and can have social consequences." Because of that, she suggests that kids whose lives are strongly impacted by bedwetting to consider an intervention like a bedwetting alarm, which senses moisture and goes off so the child wakes up to go to the bathroom. (credit:alamy)

Night Terrors (05 of07)

Night terrors, also known as sleep terrors, occur more often in children, who tend to outgrow them by adolescence, Honaker said. She also clarified that they are not the same thing as nightmares. "When a child has a sleep terror, they're asleep, so typically what will happen is they will be inconsolable, seem very upset, crying, screaming, and don't even seem to recognize the parent when the parent comes into contact with them," Honaker said.Sleep terrors can go on from 2 minutes to 20 minutes or longer, and they can be very scary for parents, she said, but parents should rest assured that sleep terrors are not at all harmful for the children."They're asleep, so there's no lost sleep, and we don't see them feeling fatigue the next day," she said. "There's typically no recall, and that's a hallmark with a sleep terror." Honaker said that anywhere from 1 to 6 percent of children will experience a sleep terror, with the typical age of onset being between 4 and 12 years old. For parents, the best thing to do is not wake the child up -- "it can actually make the episode worse because the child doesn't see them as a parent," she said. (credit:alamy)

Teeth Grinding(06 of07)

Teeth grinding, also known as bruxism, occurs when you slide your teeth back and forth, and can occur in both the day and night time, according to the A.D.A.M. Medical Encyclopedia. It can be annoying to sleep partners, and can even lead to joint pain or damage in the area.Teeth grinding is a result of any number of factors, including stress, misaligned teeth, ability to relax and sleeping habits, the A.D.A.M. Medical Encylopedia reported.Gehrman said that sometimes, lowering stress and anxiety can help to reduce teeth grinding at night. To manage teeth grinding -- though it isn't a cure -- people can go to their dentists to get a mouth guard to protect their teeth at night. (credit:alamy)

Exploding Head Syndrome(07 of07)

Exploding head syndrome is definitely more unusual than some other sleep occurrences like sleep-walking or sleep-talking, Gehrman said. "From descriptions, it's this bizarre experience that it does feel like your head is exploding" because of a loud noise going off in the head, Gehrman said. However, he noted that it's not dangerous. The American Sleep Association describes it as:

... Similar to a bomb exploding, a gun going off, a clash of cymbals or any other form of loud, indecipherable noise that seems to originate from inside the head.

Gehrman said that there is little research on the phenomenon, but it seems to be a very extreme variation of hypnic jerks -- those weird leg jerks that occur when you're first falling asleep.The American Sleep Association reported that people over age 50 and women are more likely to experience the phenomena, and that it's associated with high stress and fatigue. (credit:alamy)

For those us that do feel affected - whether it's talking about our mood or not - is there a difference when we wake up later?

"A misalignment between external cues and our internal bodyclock can also have more serious consequences," says Dr Bostock.

"For example, it has long been known that the risk of heart attacks spikes on Monday mornings. This is thought to be due to a combination of the stress of a new working week and sudden changes in our sleep-wake cycle. By studying the rates of heart attacks before and after the clock changes in the spring and autumn over four years, US researchers showed a 25% increase on the Monday following the shift to daylight saving time when clocks were rolled forwards, cutting our sleep. Conversely – and positively for next week - there was a 21% decrease in heart attacks when the clocks were rolled back in the Autumn."

So what is the best sleep practice for the winter months?

"It's avoiding bright light exposure at night," says Professor Williams, "which tends to delay the body clock and that includes cellphones and tablets - so they shouldn't be in the bedroom. Although many people use these things, there is a variable degree of difficulty with this kind of exposure."

Dr Bostock added: "Get up at the same time in the morning each day - which means giving yourself an extra hour in bed this weekend. It may still take take a few days to adjust to the new schedule, but routine is key for maintaining a consistent drive to sleep each evening.

*In the winter, with fewer hours of daylight overall, it’s important to seek out exposure to morning light where you can. Light is a strong cue to alert the internal clock, and daylight ensures it remains synchronised to the 24-hour day. Lack of light exposure during the day can result in a drift of the internal body clock to a longer than 24-hour rhythm, making it harder to get up in the morning in the winter.

Dr Ramlakhan gives her tips below:

1. Start getting in sync from Friday if you’re worried about how you’ll cope on Monday. Try to eat, sleep, wake to this time so that you are in sync by Sunday night

2. Get exercise – to keep energy levels high and to ensure you’re tired enough to get to sleep ‘earlier’ on Sunday night. Exercise earlier in day to avoid over-stimulation effect of evening exercise

3. Get outdoors into natural light as much as possible – this will help adjust the body’s circadian rhythm. Dim lights in evening to induce sleepiness

4. Avoid alcohol and caffeine and go for sleep-inducing foods and drink – almond milk, oat crackers and peanut butter or cottage cheese, small bowl of yoghurt with granola or chopped nuts on top

5. Nap wisely – avoid napping after 4pm and only nap for 10 - 20mins and no more

6. If you can’t sleep on Sunday night, rest and don’t get too hung up about the time difference

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