If you are waking up earlier than normal, should you go back to bed?

5 days ago 6

It’s 5.30 in the morning. The springtime sun has already sprung and many of us are suddenly wide awake much earlier than usual.

It can feel brutal, especially after winter’s typical sunrise, about1½ hours later.

Should you get up or go back to sleep? It depends.

We have two choices: adopt a Benjamin Franklin mindset of “early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise”, or go more Plutarch on our morning routine and ... go back to sleep. After all, the philosopher appreciated that “rest is the sweet sauce of labour”.

Associate Professor Tracey Sletten, from Monash University’s Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health, says that we have natural changes in our circadian timing based on the changes in light exposure across the seasons.

“If people are able to live by the light and dark cycles, that is the healthiest thing for us,” she says.

What that means in theory is getting up earlier in spring, with the sun, but also making up for the early start by going to bed earlier. We’ve evolved with the gradual rising and setting of the sun’s light, so allowing ourselves to move with these rhythms is good for us, Sletten says. It’s better than being shocked awake with an alarm or the switch of a light.

But sometimes our lives necessitate alarm clocks and light switches.

And when the sun goes down later in spring and summer, instead of going to bed once it sets, many people choose to keep the lights on later with electricity and devices, pushing their bedtime back too.

If that’s the case and your overall sleep duration suffers, then you’re better off pulling the blinds down and going back to sleep in the morning.

Whichever way you go, what is of equal importance is keeping the time you go to bed and wake up consistent, aiming within a 30- to 60-minute window each day.

“Going to bed and getting up at similar times (even on weekends) is important for long-term health,” says Dr Vanessa Hill, Adjunct Research Fellow, Appleton Institute, CQ University.

“A recent study led by Australian researchers found that sleep regularity may be more important for long-term health than sleep duration.”

This is because consistent light-dark/sleep-wake cycles align our internal body clock, or circadian rhythm, with our external environment so our body can do the right things – whether that’s sleeping, metabolising food, repairing itself, or being alert – at the right time of day.

“It’s hugely important,” says Sletten, a specialist in circadian rhythm. “So many aspects of our physiology and health are reliant on our circadian rhythm. Every cell in our body has a rhythm.”

The light changes that happens across the seasons occur gradually, giving our bodies time to adjust (assuming we are waking and sleeping with the natural rising and setting of the sun). But, with daylight saving, our rhythms are in for a shock.

Getting out of bed within the same window each day is important for long term health.

On October 5, our clocks jump forward an hour, and it can take our bodies two or three days to catch up and adjust.

“The sudden clock jump does disrupt your body clock and sleep patterns – particularly in spring where people often lose an hour of sleep,” Hill says. “The spring daylight saving time shift has also been linked to a short uptick in traffic accidents, possibly because people are drowsy.”

As our circadian system also governs cardiovascular and metabolic function, the disruption of daylight saving has also been linked to a brief spike in heart attacks and strokes.

One way to think about it is when our behaviours or light exposures are out of sync with our internal rhythms, it creates a cacophony where there ought to be harmony.

In fact, a new study by Stanford University researchers suggests that ditching daylight saving for good could significantly reduce the prevalence of obesity and strokes.

With the double whammy of longer days of light and daylight saving, it is an opportune moment to check in on our sleep health, Hill suggests.

“Do you have a solid wind-down, are you de-stressing in the evening?” she recommends asking ourselves. “Are you waking up refreshed? Sometimes sleeping well takes practice, kind of like fitness. And if you experience consistent difficulties, it’s worth a chat with your GP.”

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