Spring Forward on Sunday

Don’t forget to spring forward your clocks Saturday night.  You will lose an hour of sleep Saturday night, so make sure you don’t forget it and miss church on Sunday.  Every year, we see people show up at 12:00 and laugh at them in their faces.  Not really, but it is funny.

Since you lose an hour of sleep and North Side doesn’t want a room full of grumpy people, here’s some tips from Health News on how to “minimize the impact of lost sleep.”

(HealthDay News) — Planning ahead and following a few simple steps can help you minimize the impact of lost sleep when the clocks go ahead one hour on March 9, says the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.

The academy offers the following tips to cope with the return to Daylight Saving Time (DST):

• Begin to readjust your sleep schedule a few days prior to the time change by going to bed an hour earlier.
• Modify your eating schedule by having dinner one hour earlier.
• Be careful when driving or operating machinery on the day of the time change.
• Avoid napping, particularly before bedtime.
• Keep a light schedule — such as minimizing driving and avoiding strenuous physical activity — on the Monday after the time change.
• Eat properly, stay hydrated and remain physically active.

“The conversion to DST, with its forced loss of one hour of sleep and a change in sleep schedule, can sometimes result in complaints of disrupted daytime functioning,” Dr. Ron Kramer, medical director of the Colorado Sleep Disorders Center, said in a prepared statement. “This problem, surprisingly, can last as long as one to two weeks in some people, especially in the ‘night-owl’ type of person.”

But he added that the change can be a good opportunity to examine your sleep patterns and behaviors.

Travis Agnew

Travis Agnew serves as the Lead Pastor of Rocky Creek Church in Greenville, SC. His most recent book is Just (About) Married.