Daylight Savings Time is renowned for being an annual annoyance, but as it turns out, it can actually trigger underlying health issues. While it is only a one-hour time change, more frequent and emerging research in recent years states that daylight savings time can mess with our body clock causing lack of sleep, potential trigger for depression, as well as effective and physical transitional feelings such as feeling tired and disruption of one’s circadian rhythm.
It is noticed that, especially in countries in the northern hemisphere that practice daylight savings time, those suffering from depression can experience more severe depressive symptoms and even fall into a deeper depression. Daylight savings time can affect those with seasonal affective disorder by actually triggering its onset. As for those with other depressive disorders, daylight savings time can increase the severity of one’s depressive symptoms, and even trigger a double depression.
Self-care is especially critical during daylight savings time in order to cope with the negative mood, in general, that people tend to experience. Engaging in activities such as spending time outdoors, exercise, or even setting your clocks to accommodate daylight savings time a few days in advance, can all help make a difference in making this transition period as easy as possible. It should also be noted that ensuring good mental and physical health can make this time easier; some physical symptoms of seasonal affective disorder can overlap with unrelated somatic disorders such as hypoglycemia. Knowing the difference between these symptoms, and knowing how daylight savings time can affect your mental health can help make daylight savings time be perceived more like the annual annoyance that we first thought it was.
