“Driving After Springing Forward” is an acronym I may have just made up. It refers to the brain fog you may be experiencing this morning after turning the clock forward an hour for Daylight Savings Time. Maybe you didn’t feel it Sunday morning, but surely now that it is Monday and your body is out of bed trying to function at what seems like an hour earlier than the last several months of any weekday, you are bound to feel off center.
There is endless demonstrative research that connects a spike in things like auto accidents and heart attacks to DST clock adjustments (Search DST Health Risks & Auto Safety). While always interested in the science, in this case I will refer to my own experience.
As a Registered Nurse I formerly worked (usually weekend) night shifts in the Pediatric ICU of our local hospital. Working nights did a number on my sleep schedule. I would work 13 or 14 hours, come home and try to recover during the day, then go back and do it again the next day, sometimes three, four or five shifts in a row.
Often on the final day after completing a sequence of night shifts, I didn’t get much sleep. Partially because I was taking care of Zachary during the day, and partially because night shift folks know that the quickest way to try and reset is to stay up all day, then go to bed early that night.
Those years I worked night shift I would often feel nauseous and foggy on the days between my shifts. Miraculously I was able to apply laser like focus to the work itself (there is no downtime in an ICU) and provided excellent care to patients. But if I look back on that 5 or 6 year season of my life, as a whole, I never felt well.
Nurses and I imagine other shift workers have lots of tips and tricks. I mentioned one, which was to stay up all day on the final day of a sequence. Benadryl as well as prescription medications for sleep are commonly used. Not eating after certain hours of the morning (like 5am) to get the system ready to “rest and digest” at home later. All the activities of daily living get flipped around.
I was super fortunate to have a short commute from the hospital home. But many nurses had extensive drives to and from work. I often felt grateful that I was only a few miles away. This was especially true when my colleagues got into auto accidents driving home in the morning, which seemed disproportionate to my dayshift colleagues who never seemed to have trouble.
Why was it that night shifters were getting in more accidents? In my non-official blogging opinion, they were suffering from sleep deprivation, similar (although far more extreme) to my new acronym: ”D-A-S-F.” Again, lots of research connecting decreased cognitive abilities due to sleep deprivation, similar to those experienced by imbibing alcohol beyond the legal limit is available. But this was real time experience.
Once in a while I would realize I hadn’t seen someone in a while, and came to find out they had been in an auto accident. Or, just in speaking to nightshift colleagues several seemed to have had a “near” accident to report, or had one years ago, driving home from work on the morning after a night shift.
Bringing it back to DST. Don’t take for granted, the literal physical symptoms you may experience for the next couple of days after turning the clock ahead. Headaches, nausea, confusion, brain fog can all be sleep deficit symptoms. Don’t discount them and stay alert, especially while driving. Do your best to gift yourself with an early bedtime today.
I guess one benefit of COVID is that contrary to most years a lot of us don’t have to (or get to) drive anywhere today!