How Sleep Experts Say You Should Prepare for Daylight Saving Time and Help Your Body Adjust

Why couldn’t we just spring forward at a more convenient time? You know, like on a Friday afternoon.

Amelia McBride

Daylight saving time kinda sucks, IMHO (at least, in the moment). Sure, gaining more daylight in the evening is cool and all, but the practice of setting clocks forward an hour each March (aka “springing forward”) requires us to essentially re-learn how to prepare for daylight saving time and the loss of an hour of sleep every year.

Experts in This Article

Abhinav Singh

medical director at the Indiana Sleep Center and a medical review expert for SleepFoundation.org

Lauren Hale

vice chair of the Board for the National Sleep Foundation and a professor at Stony Brook University

Mike Gradisar

sleep expert and head of sleep science at Sleep Cycle

Shelby Harris

clinical psychologist, sleep specialist, author of The Women’s Guide To Overcoming Insomnia, and Director of Sleep Health at Sleepopolis

And I’m not the only one who feels this way: Sleep experts tend to agree that forcing ourselves to wake up and go to sleep an hour earlier than we’re used to goes against our body’s natural tendencies. In fact, sleep researchers at the American Academy of Sleep Medicine actually want to abolish daylight saving time entirely (in favor of permanent standard time), noting that the practice of setting clocks forward is misaligned with human biology.

(FYI, the Sunshine Protection Act was also introduced in 2023 to do the opposite and make daylight saving time permanent, leaving us with less morning light and more evening light year-round—but at least we wouldn’t have to change the time twice a year.)

“It’s a change in clock time, but we can’t necessarily change our body clock’s time that rapidly,” explains sleep expert Michael Gradisar, PhD, head of sleep science at the sleep-tracking app Sleep Cycle.

“It’s a change in clock time, but we can’t necessarily change our body clock’s time that rapidly.” —Michael Gradisar, PhD, head of sleep science at Sleep Cycle

While individual reports of health disturbances brought on by sleep changes around daylight saving time are difficult to draw conclusions from, “at the population level, you see increases in heart [attacks]1, increase in stroke2, increase in suicides and car accidents3, [and] reduced productivity4,” says Lauren Hale, PhD, vice chair of the board for the National Sleep Foundation. “You see all of these effects in the few days after the transition to daylight saving.”

I hold out hope that maybe, one day, we’ll be able to kiss daylight saving time buh-bye. But until that time comes, it’s worth learning some ways you can prepare for daylight saving time and preserve your shuteye.

When is daylight saving time in 2025?

Daylight saving time starts on the second Sunday in March—this year, it falls on March 9, 2025. On that day, at 2:00 a.m. local time, we “spring forward” or set clocks forward by one hour. Daylight saving time then ends on the first Sunday in November, which falls on November 2, 2025.

But why do we change the clocks anyway? The reason for daylight saving time is to allow us more daylight hours in the evening during the warmer months, and to preserve daylight hours in the morning during the colder months.

If the return to standard time sounds like the better of the two, it kind of is. The “fall back” period “is generally easier, as we are allotted an extra hour [to sleep] as the clocks move back to standard time,” explains sleep medicine physician Abhinav Singh, MD, author of Sleep to Heal and medical review expert at Sleep Foundation.