Researchers reveal how sleep affected by seasons

How are you sleeping? A new study has found the transition from daylight saving time to standard time, when one hour is gained overnight, was associated with a brief increase in sleep disorders such as difficulty going to sleep or staying asleep, but there was no such association when an hour is lost in the change from standard time to daylight saving time. The study is published in the May 3, 2023, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. It also found a small difference in the amount of sleep people get depending on the season.

“Sleep plays an essential role in maintaining good health, mood, cognition, job performance, and social activity, and it is influenced by the circadian rhythm, the internal clock that regulates body processes,” said study author Ron B. Postuma, MD, MSc, of McGill University, in Montreal, Canada, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. “The good news is that the sleep disruptions we observed following the change to standard time were brief and no longer evident two weeks after the shift.”

Reference:

Zolfaghari, S. (2023). Effects of Season and Daylight Savings Time Shifts on Sleep Symptoms: Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. Neurology. https://doi.org/10.1212/WNL.0000000000207342