Thanh Duong: Transitioning from daylight saving time could increase depression
Thanh Duong
Blog 1
Title: Transitioning From Daylight Saving Time Could Increase Depression
Link: http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/04/health/fall-back-time-transition-depression/index.html
The article explains in a recent study which setting the clocks back an hour results a harder time to handling it. Also, it explains depression cases has increased, but, it starts to decrease after ten weeks. People say that changing time can affects people around the world and disrupt the circadian rhythm and hard to adjust. It also talks about how to cope with seasonal depression. While you gain an hour after you change your clocks from Daylight Saving Time (DST) would bring more light and help decrease depression. Lastly, it explains the importance of having a sleep schedule and how transitioning can be a problem for of us because waking up when there is sunlight makes us jump right to our day, while waking up in a dark morning makes us hard to shake the sleepy feeling. Also, it affects our circadian rhythm by decreasing our concentration, alertness, and information & memory recalling. Concluding to combat all of these problems of transitioning from Daylight Saving Time is to bring in more light, get active, and socialize with your friends.
I find this article is not research, just a generalization of how Daylight Saving Time affects our bodies, moods, and how to cope with it. When we hear that we would be transiting into Daylight Saving Time (DST) or out can be a annoying because it disrupt our movements in circadian timing and adjusting to the light we receive during these periods. I have never question the idea of transition of DST, I think it is a great way to save energy and think how it affects people in the world. Also, I relate to people who dread on switching their clocks because it is a hassle, but I would it a week of the date to switch to get used to the time switching so there would be any aftereffects. This topic relates to the course in some ways because before we already transition out of DST, our class time was still dark in some cases and we would have the feel of sleepy, very tired and not being involve in class trying to shake it off.
This article is of particular interest to me. A member of my immediate family suffers from Seasonal Affective Disorder and I've seen him struggle with it every year around the time that summer ends. Essentially, it's almost an immediate mood change once the temperature gets cooler and days get shorter. It's interesting to see how much his mood is impacted by the seasonal changes and how he copes with it. It's very important that he keeps himself on a set sleeping schedule, gets outside often, and increases his visits to therapy in order to combat the symptoms that come with daylight savings. Also, like you mentioned with the changes in daylight, our circadian rhythms can fall off track which results in a lot of confusion within our bodies. Personally, I enjoy the light early in the morning but, when it starts getting dark at 4:30PM I definitely find myself yearning for those long summer days.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who lives in California and travels to the East coast quite often for work, and she has mentioned before that when she travels East she feels the psychological effects of decreased day time and even more so in the winter months. Our class textbook expands on this and explains that our quality of sleep is worse when we travel East because it shortens the day's length (chapter 15, p. 484). I found it interesting that the way traveling alters our circadian rhythm is the same way DST alters our circadian rhythm.
ReplyDeleteI found this article extremely interesting because I notice a change in my mood during this time of year but never knew exactly why other than "the changing of seasons." While this article may not have made any ground breaking discoveries, it better explained this mood change. It is extremely interesting that something as small as changing the clock only one hour can have on the human body.
ReplyDeleteThis article was a great choice for a post because the effects of daylight savings can be seen currently in our own lives as well as those around us. I personally have seen many of the negative effects you mentioned with myself. UV lamps have been known to positively combat the negative impacts of daylight savings time changes. However, I wonder what effect the time change has on neurotransmitters related to depression since seasonal depression seems to be a large effect of the time change. Research into this may bring about new and better solutions about how to combat the effects of daylight savings so that people's functioning isn't so dramatically impacted for any amount of time.
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