Get ready to ‘relapse’.

Daylight saving time 2024 ends this Sunday, November 3 at 2 a.m. Most people in the US will change their clocks on Saturday night and go back an hour to get an extra 60 minutes of sleep (or another hour of fun). This means that there is more daylight in the morning, but that it also gets dark much earlier in the evening.

Here’s everything you need to know, including how to prepare for the health effects of the time change.

When should you turn back your clock?

Daylight saving time, also known as ‘summer time’, starts on the second Sunday in March and ends on the first Sunday in November. We “jump forward” (lose an hour) when daylight saving time begins and “fall back” (gain an extra hour) when it ends.

For manual clocks, it is advisable to turn them back an hour before you go to bed on Saturday evening (November 2) so that when you wake up in the morning, all your clocks are showing the correct time. For digital devices, including computers, cell phones and TVs, the time automatically changes at 2 a.m. on Sunday, moving back a full hour.

Health effects

The most noticeable change in the end of daylight saving time is that there will be more daylight in the morning when children go to school and adults go to work. It also means that sunset will immediately move an hour earlier. In Syracuse, the sunrise goes from 7:38 a.m. on Halloween (Thursday, Oct. 31) to 6:42 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 3, while the sunset jumps from 5:56 p.m. on Thursday to 4:53 p.m. on Sunday.

‘Falling back’ is easier for most people than ‘jumping forward’ an hour, but your body’s internal clock will still have to adjust. The Associated Press notes that research has found that heart attacks and strokes tend to increase right after daylight saving time begins in March, while sleep problems and depression (including seasonal affective disorder) may be more common during the shorter days of fall and winter .

“The brain has a master clock that is set by exposure to sunlight and darkness. This circadian rhythm is a cycle of approximately 24 hours that determines when we become sleepy and when we are more alert. The patterns change with age, one reason why young people who rise early evolve into struggling teenagers to wake up,” the AP writes.

“Morning light resets the rhythm. Towards the evening, levels of a hormone called melatonin begin to rise, causing drowsiness. Too much light in the evening – that extra hour from daylight saving time – delays that peak and the cycle gets out of sync. And that circadian clock affects more than just sleep, and also affects things like heart rate, blood pressure, stress hormones and metabolism.”

How to prepare

In addition to preparing by manually changing the clock, some recommend shifting their bedtime little by little in the days leading up to the time change. Ensuring you get as much or more sunshine can also reset your circadian rhythm for healthy, restful sleep.

Sleep deprivation is linked to heart disease, cognitive decline, obesity and other health problems. The AP reports that 1 in 3 American adults get less than the recommended seven-plus hours of sleep per night, and more than half of teens don’t get the recommended eight-plus hours of sleep on weeknights.

Also: Replace the batteries in your smoke detectors. The Firemen’s Association of the State of New York recommends replacing batteries as we transition to and from daylight saving time, as 60 percent of home fire deaths occur in homes without working smoke detectors.

Why do we still change our clocks?

Daylight saving time was first instituted during World War I to save fuel for war industries. The law was repealed after World War I ended, but was reinstated by Congress during World War II due to energy consumption and became U.S. law in 1966 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Uniform Time Act, which established uniform start and end times were recorded within standard time. zones. The policy, regulated by the Ministry of Transport, aims to save energy and reduce car accidents and crime.

Some states do not change their clocks: Arizona (except the Navajo Nation), Hawaii, and the U.S. territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands do not observe daylight saving time. They observe standard time all year round, while other states (including New York) spend half the year on standard time and the other half on daylight saving time.

The U.S. Senate passed a bipartisan bill known as the Sunshine Protection Act in 2022, but it never made it to the House of Representatives after lawmakers failed to agree on whether to maintain standard time or make it permanent summer time. Similar bills have been introduced in the New York State Legislature to put an end to clock changing in the Empire State, but no progress has been made.

Some health experts say eliminating daylight saving time (or making it permanent) in other states would be a “bad idea.” A neurologist and spokesperson for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine said not changing the clock would leave most of America feeling like the country is suffering from “permanent jet lag.”