By: Daisy Davis
When the clock on the wall skips ahead one hour in March, it's our body's internal clock that has a harder time adjusting.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the master circadian clock in our brain is what synchronizes and controls our circadian rhythm, which regulates our body’s 24-hour sleep/wake cycle.
Kelly Sullivan, an associate professor at Georgia Southern and neuroepidemiologist, said the cycle relies on sunlight to reset.
“Getting natural light as soon after waking as possible,” Sullivan said. “This sets the body’s internal clock for the day and helps you wake and sleep.”
Sullivan said that a few hours of missed sleep every once and a while won’t do much, but repeated loss of sufficient sleep can interfere with the production of dopamine and serotonin, leading to challenges with emotional regulation.
“During deep sleep, the brain clears ‘waste’ such as beta-amyloid, a protein implicated in Alzheimer's disease,” Sullivan said. “If sleep is frequently disrupted or short, these toxins don't get cleared out and can cause cognitive decline over time.”
To put it simply, insufficient sleep can affect our mood and energy levels. When this happens, our social and physical and social function will pay the price along with our brain.
Susan Averett, an applied microeconomist and professor at Lafayette College, recently co-authored a paper in the “American Journal of Health Economics” addressing the negative effects of daylight saving time on mental health.
“I have never liked the clock switching and came across some research on its effects on the body and wondered how it affected mental health,” Averett said. “I worked on a paper with two other economists to address this question.”
Averett said that her findings suggest that standard time is more beneficial for alignment with the natural day-night cycle.
“When clock time diverges from solar time (time determined by the sun’s position), it can disrupt an individual’s circadian rhythm,” Averett said. “The circadian rhythm is closely tied to the natural day–night cycle; it plays a central role in regulating physiological functions such as sleep–wake behavior.”
Averett said daily activities are organized around clock time, which does not always align with solar time, and this discrepancy can lead to circadian misalignment and potential consequences for our health.
“We find that there are negative impacts on human mental health from misalignment that is likely driven by sleep deprivation,” Averett said.
Sleep deprivation is not only concerning because of its short-term impacts on our social and physical function. Insufficient sleep has also been linked to long-term mental health issues.
“We all have experienced feeling groggy after a late night or early morning,” Sullivan said. “But chronic circadian rhythm disruptions have been linked to major depressive disorder and bipolar disorder.”
Logan Cowan, an associate professor at Georgia Southern and a cardiovascular disease epidemiologist, says that daylight saving time seems to have modest effects on cardiovascular health, but it’s hard to calculate the impact.
“There was a study published eight years ago that found relatively significant increases to heart attack risk in the days following losing an hour of sleep and lower risk in the days following gaining an hour,” Cowan said. “That study has been broadly disseminated now.”
Cowan says that wealth of studies and meta-analyses have revealed only a small percent increase in cardiovascular heart attack risk following “spring forward.”
“The cardiovascular effects of time change on the body is a relatively hotly debated topic,” Cowan said. “I know this is sort of a typical scientist cop out but we probably need to study it more to really understand.”
Although it’s uncertain if our hearts are negatively impacted by the one-hour time change, there are certainly other impacts to consider.
Sullivan said that while most people may enjoy an extra hour of sunlight in the evening, there are trade-offs.
“There are a multitude of problems that can arise from insufficient sleep,” Sullivan said. "Increased risk of depression and anxiety, continued sleep disturbances, neurodegenerative diseases, drastic hormonal shifts and metabolic issues that could lead to type 2 diabetes.”
According to Sullivan, there also seems to be an increase in fatal car accidents and workplace injuries in the days following the “spring forward” time change.
Although the disruption of our circadian rhythm can have negative implications for our physical and mental wellbeing, there are ways to ease the impact of this annual disruption.
“Good sleep hygiene is helpful year-round and even more important when adjusting to schedule changes,” Sullivan said.
This good sleep hygiene can include getting natural light as soon as possible after waking, avoiding blue light from screens close to bedtime, and maintaining a consistent schedule.
“Some people prefer to ‘spread’ the time change over several days,” Sullivan said. “For example, they go to bed 15 minutes later and get up 15 minutes earlier each day for four days leading up to the time change.”
As of April 2026, The Georgia Sunshine Protection Act- a bill to make a permanent time zone switch and make daylight saving time permanent- was not approved before Sine Die.
As for now, the clock will continue to move ahead one hour in the spring and go back one hour in the fall annually.