Daylight saving time returns, bringing the time-sensitive debate back into the picture. Some are fans of moving the clock forward, while for others, losing an hour of sleep is not ideal.
While many get stressed over the time change, Bethany Fleck Dillen, Ph.D., professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver's Department of Psychological Sciences, explained the lack of preparation heading into daylight saving and how that can bring about more ease.
"The problem that I see is nobody thinks about it the five, six, seven days leading up to it. They think about it the day of, and if we started to think about it earlier, then we could prepare our bodies for that shift, but we're just not good at planning like that," Dillen said.
Dillen said daylight saving has a direct impact on the body by changing light levels and our biological rhythm.
"The way biologically that the light impacts us, it comes in through our retina, it hits our suprachiasmatic nucleus in our hypothalamus, and then that is going to help us produce melatonin," said Dillen. "So the light levels, they're responsible for producing and getting us to fall asleep and then also getting us to wake up."
As a developmental psychologist who studies how children learn, Dillen explained that children may be moodier than usual because of the time change.
"So, there's just mood disturbances more prone to tantrums, less able to concentrate academically, and so that will be a challenge this week," said Dillen. "We just need to give them some time, some space and allow them to rest and be understanding."
This time change is also felt by those in the clock industry, who manually move the clocks forward and prepare for customers coming in the next couple of days.
Mike Korn, president of the local chapter of the National Association of Watch and Clock Collectors, spent Saturday morning working on the Denver East High School clock.
"It's a real fun time because it's a time to go up into this clock that there's only two of these E. Howard's here in the Denver area. And so you don't see those kind of clocks every day. It's a pleasure to go up there," Korn said.
Following daylight saving, Korn expects to get a couple of calls on Monday and Tuesday from people needing help fixing their antique clocks.
"In the spring, it's easy because you go forward some of these antique clocks. You can't move the hands backward, so usually, you just stop the clock for an hour and then start it back up again."
Clocks chimed at Clock's Limited as the owner, Minh Lam, demonstrated how to properly change some of the older clocks. When asked if this task was hard, he said, "Easy for me, but for some customers, they don’t know how to do it."
While your internal clock may feel the change, Dillen stressed that your body will resynchronize into your natural circadian rhythm.
"The biggest impact that it has is the incongruency between what your natural rhythm is and the light levels, but it's temporary, and it resolves itself. So, if you're taking care of yourself and you're getting enough sleep, things will be fine," Dillen said.
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