How Do I Survive "Spring Forward?"

Your Doctor Friends

Daylight saving time. When it happens twice a year, do you find yourself forgetting which one is the “bad one”? We know “spring forward, fall back”, and the “spring forward” part sounds deceptively perky and positive, but really it’s the BAD ONE! Meaning, we lose an hour by shifting the clock forward. What a crock!

Our circadian rhythms are so interesting, and drive so many facets of our physical and mental health.

A recent article posted by Rush University Medical Center highlighted the detrimental effects that spring daylight saving time can wreak on our bodies and minds. The article features sleep medicine specialist, James Wyatt, PhD (who coincidentally taught Jeremy and Julie about sleep medicine in medical school!), who explains how the sleep science community recognizes the research-backed hypothesis that daylight saving time poses risks to our health.

While the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, as well as more than a dozen other organizations, publicly recognize that public health and safety would benefit from the elimination of daylight saving time, there’s no way to know if the policy will ever change in the US.

So, since we are forced to “spring forward” this Sunday, March 10th, we decided to devote an episode to how the time shift affects us, and if we can take steps to mitigate the disruption we feel during daylight saving time!

Also, enjoy a little dessert story, brought to our attention by our friends from the Bananas podcast, Kurt Braunohler and Scotty Landes, where we discuss the "VIBES pill", an ingestible motorized vibrating pill currently under research, that, when ingested before a meal, mimics the feeling of fullness. What a strange world we live in, folks!

So, friends, are you ready to spring into action??

Resources for today's episode include:

A Rush Stories article titled "Dreading the Spring Forward? You're Not Alone."

A Johns Hopkins article titled "7 Things to Know About Daylight Savings Time."

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine 2019 Sleep Prioritization Study results.

A Science Daily article highlighting a study by the American Academy of Neurology, titled "Does daylight saving time increase risk of stroke?"

A PLOS article titled "Measurable health effects associated with the daylight saving time shift."

A 2018 article from The Energy Journal, titled "Does Daylight Saving Save Electricity? A Meta-Analysis."

A December 2023 article in Science Advances titled "A vibrating ingestible bioelectronic stimulator modulates gastric stretch receptors for illusory satiety."

Link to the Bananas podcast (the Jan 30th, 2024 episode includes the VIBES pill story :)

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