That Extra Hour Of Sleep Comes At A Cost

Setting Our Clocks Back Sets Us Back

Driving home along the 401 to suburbia from work in downtown Toronto, I wondered, would anyone visit me at the hospital if I just plowed my Chevy pickup truck into one of the light standards? Maybe if I did a trick driving move and cut off this semi beside me he’d kill me as he t-boned me. I wonder what it would feel like? Besides my parents, nobody would really miss me.

For months, maybe even years now I’d been feeling this way. Thinking these things.

It was late autumn and the days were getting shorter. The increase in darkness disturbingly comforting as it enveloped my own inner darkness. As if my own inner demons were manifesting themselves upon the earth.

As the days grew shorter, more and more time of the day became the demons’ playground. Less and less of it providing sunlight which is the life-force of all things here on earth.

Then late October hits. Daylight savings time comes to an end. And like a light switch being flipped, it’s like our days are an hour shorter. Instantly. Time may have only shifted, but the end of a day, that brief time when we come out of work back into the outside world and are headed home… after a long hard day… that’s when we need that little boost of life… that little recharge. Like getting those precious few minutes of charging time so our smartphones will make it until the end of the day, we too need that little boost keep us functioning.

It’s gone. As if we are plunged into an ongoing darkness for the rest of winter. Save perhaps weekends, except I work weekends too.

It was 2011. A variety of issues were impacting me. I managed the daily fight until January… until one day they were no longer thoughts and musings while driving home… until one night already at home in the safety of “my space” an actual plan began to form. A plan to end the pain.

Thankfully for me there was something deep in my core that stopped me before I followed through on my already prepared plan. Some little light inside that said “NO!” And instead I sat at my computer and looked up help.

But depression remains a daily battle. Likely will for the rest of my life. I’m a lot better at managing it now. It’s exhausting, but worth it.

One of the things I have to do to manage myself is to be very self aware. It’s through really exploring, analyzing, and learning ourselves that we begin to better understand ourselves.

Therapy didn’t cure me. I don’t believe it’s possible to cure depression. But it did equip me with the tools and skills to manage it. To recognize the signs and give me time to do things to head it off. It helped get me started on this path.

Through the process I learned just how incredibly essential daylight is to survival.

Sunlight is very literally life. Albeit it for some of us more so than for others. But essential for all.

There are multiple studies out there that explain the importance, but for me, the move back to standard time is the hardest time of year.

Most of us love this weekend. The extra hour to sleep. Or the extra hour of drinking out at the clubs or bars. The extra hour of gaming time. Whatever your thing, pretty much everyone loves the extra hour.

But that’s a one-off short term benefit. And it comes at a great cost.

It artificially shortens the amount of daylight that we have the opportunity to be exposed to.

My situation is my own, compounded by permanent depression, but S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder) affects everyone at some level, whether you’re aware of it or not. And depending on your own personal life schedule, the move back to standard time compounds it.

Take some time to actively stop and analyze yourself. Your responses and reactions to things around you. Are they different this time of year? Is your fuse shorter? Does your coworker bug you more? Are you more lethargic? Start to recognize the signs of negative force working within you.

Until we can convince the powers that be to allow us to exist within daylight savings time year-round, we need to actively work to find treatments that work for us.

Maybe it’s getting up earlier. Going to the gym before work instead of after. Allowing ourself that extra hour of daylight in the morning.

Maybe if you’ve got a workplace with flexible work hours, shift your work day an hour earlier to keep your body on a more consistent daylight exposure schedule.

Maybe it’s actively leaving the office in the middle of the day and going out for lunch.

Or maybe there’s other strategies you can employ; listening to music to help you power through. Making date night a more regular thing. Forcing yourself out in the cold of winter to meet up with your buddies instead of hibernating the winter away.

Find what works for you personally. We are all different.

But be aware, even if you don’t recognize it, the season we’re entering has a massive impact on your health, both physical and mental. But we can fight the affects and be better for it.

For me, I got lucky this year. As a normal course of action I work nights. Meaning I sleep in in the morning missing even more daylight time. But for the month of November at least I’ve been blessed with a random string of day shifts. Forcing me up earlier, getting me more sun time.

Perhaps the delay of my time of extreme lack of daylight by a month will allow me to better survive winter this year. Time will tell.