When the clock is moved, Sandra de Visser from Eindhoven is one week off the egg. Ever since childhood. She feels tired, irritated and completely lost for a while. Even with an hour time difference. Is that really possible? Of course. “But there’s probably more to it than that.”
“It mainly has to do with whether you are a morning or an evening person,” explains doctor Ingrid Verbeek of the Center for Sleep Medicine in Heeze. “But you shouldn’t make it too big either.”
Evening people, that is about two out of ten, are mainly affected by the rhythm change. They generally get tired later in the evening and often go to bed later. If you also put the clock forward an hour at night, you will miss an hour of sleep faster. That is where the main problem lies, according to Verbeek. A person is more comfortable with the lengthening of the day than with the shortening of the day. That’s what disrupts your rhythm, not so much the time.
“If you’re really upset for a week, there’s probably more to it.”
“But if you are really upset about it for a week, there is probably more going on,” says Verbeek. Often it is the people who already have sleeping problems anyway. “If I have clients with a shifted sleep rhythm, I have to make sure they don’t go off the rails around this time. Such a switch can have a lot of influence on them.”
Sandra de Visser (51) from Eindhoven is such a ceiling starer. “I can’t explain it,” she says. The week after changing the clock she feels tired, irritable and as if she has lost her job for a while. “Really a dip,” she calls it.
“We recommend permanent winter time.”
Sleep doctor Verbeek has a solution for that. If it really comes through summer time, it helps to get up a little earlier every day for the switch. “But then you don’t have to go to bed earlier. Otherwise you’ll just lie awake.” The idea behind it is that you slowly shift your rhythm and build up ‘sleep pressure’. In other words: if you get up a little earlier every morning, you will automatically fall asleep earlier.
Plus, go outside. The more daylight, the better your body adapts to the clock. And move. That’s always good too. “But ideally we just stop with those adjustments. We simply advise permanent winter time,” says Verbeek.
Daylight saving time starts in the night from Saturday to Sunday. The clock is put forward one hour at two o’clock at night.