The American Academy of Sleep Medicine has these tips to help people cope with the upcoming time change:
Begin to re-jig your sleeping routine a few days before the time change by hitting the sack an hour earlier.
Re-adjust your mealtime schedule by eating dinner an hour earlier.
Be careful when operating machinery or driving on the day of the time change.
Avoid naps, especially close to bedtime.
Avoid turning to caffeine to wake you up in the morning and alcohol at night to help you sleep.
Maintain a lighter schedule on the Monday after the time change. Try and minimize driving and avoid strenuous activities.
Eat properly, drink lots of water and remain physically active.
Since Daylight Savings Time is starting three weeks earlier this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is concerned that this earlier change could have unpredictable effects on medical devices and equipment, hospital computer networks, and information technology systems.
According to the FDA, medical equipment that uses, creates or records time information about a patient’s diagnosis or treatment and hasn’t been updated by the manufacturer may not work properly when DST starts Sunday.
This could cause medications to be incorrectly prescribed, or given at the wrong time, or missed, or given more than once, or given for longer or shorter durations than intended, or incorrectly recorded, the FDA warned.
“The extent and seriousness of this problem is unclear,” the FDA said in a statement. “We do not know if any medical equipment will be affected, how it will be affected, or how it may affect patients. Although we don’t know what specific equipment may fail to work correctly, we are concerned about equipment that consumers or patients use in their homes.”
The FDA suggested that health-care workers and patients check any medical equipment that is time-sensitive. Checking should be done after 2 a.m. Sunday, after the time change.