In a matter of hours now … clocks will spring forward … workers will drag drowsy brains behind… and many will struggle against that sleepy syndrome as they walk into work.
Even experts find it hard to explain why the brain needs to sleep for a third of every day. 
We do know that humans sleep in cycles and every 60 minutes the brain swoops into a deep sleep or REM … which is the cycle that rewires your brain nightly. This is the time when your brain integrates what you learned into long term memory tools.
For people who retire at about the same time … and in the same setting … their internal brain clocks often need no alarm clock to awaken them. All is disrupted however when the clock changes its routines and your internal clock races to keep up.
Expect that it will take you several days to adjust to sudden changes … where you lose an hour’s sleep. Some people start eating a bit earlier in that week ahead of the time changes. Others retire and get up a few days earlier for a few days in advance … all in preparation.
More typical though … is the sleepy staff member … who performs at half mast … and tends to arrive hour late only to leave a dollar short … for the week following the clock’s spring forward.
How does your brain handle time changes?
My sleep cycles seem to run 90 minutes. That means I'll wake up without an alarm at 6 hours or 7 and a half hours, but not eight hours.
As for adjustments, it seems like it takes me a day for each hour of sudden change. If I fly to California from North Carolina and stay there for a week, I'm adjusted by about day 3 unless I do some things I know will get me into sync sooner.
Posted by: Wally Bock | March 9, 2008 4:57 PM | Permalink to Comment