Daylight saving time: Clock change disrupts your body clock and sleep patterns

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. Credit: iStock

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 li