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Everything you need to know about Daylight Saving Time coming to an end

Everything you need to know about Daylight Saving Time coming to an end

This weekend marks the end of Daylight Saving Time (DST), so be sure to turn your clocks back an hour before you go to bed on Saturday night.

Actual time the “fall back” comes into effect: 2 a.m. on Sunday, November 2.

“Springing forward” often gets a bad reputation for throwing us off kilter — and increasing risks of heart attacks and car accidents — every spring, but does “falling back” have any effects on our health?

Better sleep.

Finally, we’re back to normal.

Last year, German researchers claimed that sleep cycles never get on track during DST, with night owls suffering the most.

"The circadian clock does not change to the social change," researcher Till Roenneberg said, according to HealthDay News. “During the winter, there is a beautiful tracking of dawn in human sleep behaviour, which is completely and immediately interrupted when Daylight Saving Time is introduced in March.”

The extra hour of sleep can also tell you if you’re sleep-deprived. If you wake up before your alarm, your sleep patterns are healthy.

“If you find yourself sleeping for the entire extra hour in the morning, that’s a sign you’re sleep deprived,” says sleep specialist and clinical psychologist Michael Breus.

If you are sleep deprived, now’s the time to make changes.

“The fall time change is a once-a-year opportunity to calibrate your ideal bedtime,” Breus says.

Don’t expect the transition to be a completely smooth one, warns Dr. Yosef Krespi, director of the New York Head and Neck Institute’s Center for Sleep Disorders.

"It will hit you Sunday evening," Krespi tells ABC News. “But if your body clock is tuned to waking up with sunlight, you’re going to benefit.”

Headaches and feeling SAD.

Apparently time changes can trigger cluster headaches just as weather changes do, as they’re associated with an individual’s circadian rhythm.

While there’s no way to prevent or treat these specific time-change headaches, Weather.com says just anticipating them can at least prepare patients to have any treatments ready.

The end of DST often also coincides with SAD (seasonal affective disorder), a seasonal depression. Others just get a milder form of the “winter blues.” Our bodies get out of sync with the sun, which affects the brain’s release of melatonin, the sleep hormone.

Some sufferers find some relief with a light therapy box, which helps boost alertness, and daily vitamin D.

How to adjust.

To make the adjustment, Breus advises just going to bed when you normally do on Saturday night when an alarm set for your normal wake-up time. Take advantage of that extra hour of sleep.

He also recommends that people take advantage of the extra hour of sunlight in the morning, especially since the afternoons are going to get immediately gloomy.

Morning-light exposure — even just 10 minutes of it — regulates your sleep cycle and can also help regulate weight and mood.

Krespi suggests getting some exercise and eating healthy, as both do wonders for your sleep.

A low dose of melatonin might help your body adjust to your new bedtime. Always talk to your doctor about dosage, timing, and whether it will interact with other drugs you’re taking.

How to help the kids adjust.

Worried that the little ones will wake you up at dawn on Sunday? Here are two strategies to help you survive the time change as a family:

1. Implement a rollback plan. In the week before daylight saving ends, start putting the kids to bed later in 15-minute increments. By the time Nov. 2 comes around, they should be used to going to bed an hour later and (hopefully) getting up an hour later, too.

Moving their sleep schedule should also include adjusting meal times and nap times, too, says child sleep consultant Katie Kovaleski.

Keep kids’ rooms dark, and consider using a white noise machine to drown out outside noises that might startle them awake.

Pediatric sleep consultant Susie Parker tells Apartment Therapy, “If your baby wakes before 6 a.m. (new time), hold off on going to their room. Let them hang out until 6 or you may inadvertently set a very early new wake-up time.”

2. Make the morning of the time change special. Set up games for the kids to play if they wake up before you do — and show them where on the clock the hands have to be before they can disturb you.

“Even setting your kids up to watch a video in the early morning is okay in this instance,” Breus tells Health.com. “In all likelihood, the parents could use that extra hour of sleep, so do whatever it takes to take advantage of it.”

On Sunday, expose your kids to plenty of sunlight to help their internal clocks adjust to the new time, sleep consultant Jenn Kelner tells WJBF.

What are you time-change strategies? Or do you just “grin and bear it?”