The time change is messing with your sleep. Try these 3 tips to reset your internal clock

The end of DST is approaching, which means shorter days and longer nights. According to one examination by the Sleep Doctor25% of people said the time change affects their sleeping habits. If you’ve had trouble falling asleep or staying asleep during a time change, here are a few ways to get your circadian rhythm—your body’s internal alarm clock—back on track.

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How to reset your body’s alarm clock

To promote healthy sleep hygiene and prevent the consequences of losing sleep after daylight savings time, you should consider following these tips.

1. Don’t adjust your wake-up time right after the time has changed. After a few days to a week, your body will get used to the new time. Instead, consider taking a short 20-minute nap in the afternoon to help give you more energy. Long napshowever, may make you feel more lethargic.

2. Avoid alcohol, caffeine and unhealthy meals before bed. These drugs cause sleep disturbances that prevent you from getting the quality seven to nine hours of sleep you need to maintain physical and mental health.

3. If you are an early riser, go outside early in the morning to get some light. Light helps you stay more alert during the day and will reduce your body’s production of melatoninwhich causes drowsiness. You can also consider a sunrise alarm clock. It leaves a natural light in your bedroom to gently wake you up in the morning, just like the sunlight would. It is especially practical now that the sun rises later.

How daylight saving time affects your body

Your circadian rhythm is your body’s internal clock, which follows a 24-hour cycle. It plays an important role in dictating your sleep-wake cycleand it is strongly influenced by signals from light and dark. When daylight saving time begins, it can delay your circadian rhythm, making you feel sleepier in the morning while it’s still dark and more energetic in the evening when the sun rises later.

If you’ve ever traveled to a region with a different time zone than you’re used to, you’ve probably experienced a similar disruption to your circadian rhythm with what we call jet lag. For example, if you travel from New York to California, where there is a three-hour time difference, 9:00 pm feels like midnight to your body, and you are much more lethargic than usual.

At first glance, a small change in your routine may not seem drastic. However, studies have shown that disruptions caused by daylight saving time can have a big impact on your sleep hygiene and overall health if you’re not careful.

The Consequences of Daylight Saving Time

The average person will sleep around 40 minutes less on the Monday after the start of daylight saving time, according to a study. In addition to feeling drowsy, experts have also mentioned (in more serious cases) an increase in the number of occupational accidents, heart attackmood swings and even car accidents after switching from standard time (November to March) to summer time. Poor sleep quality and changes in our sleep-wake cycle appear to be driving factors for these events, a major argument for experts pushing to abolish daylight saving time.

More Read: Why your internal clock keeps you up at night

The Proposed Benefits of Daylight Saving Time

On the flip side of the coin, there has also been research that points to the benefits of observing daylight saving time. Although car accident deaths appear to increase the day after the change from daylight saving time, they may decline in the long termpossibly in part due to longer daylight hours. There also appears to be one decrease in crime for this reason, as crimes are less likely to occur during the daytime.

Separate from direct health effects, daylight saving time also promotes less energy consumption. One 2008 survey of the Department of Energy found that four additional weeks of daylight saving time saved 1.3 billion kilowatt-hours, which is equivalent to the amount of energy used by 100,000 households in a year.

While experts continue to ponder the pros and cons of daylight saving time and whether we should observe it, there are things you can do to combat its negative side effects in the meantime.