Travis Nguyen/Photo Editor
Shorter days and longer nights from daylights savings have mental and physical effects
Don’t get me wrong, I love the colder seasons. Halloween, Christmas, doing winter festivities, the snow and much more. But I do not like when it’s pitch black outside by 5 p.m. and the day that felt as though it just started is already done.
It confuses me because, although I’ll still have classes, meetings or work after the sun sets, it becomes hard for my brain to wrap around the notion that I’ll be working for hours in complete darkness.
We may not truly even realize it, but we do rely on the sun for a lot. When it comes to the simplicities of aiding our health, the sun is a great mood booster and important for your physical health as a whole.
Light is the most powerful regulator of our internal clock, known as our circadian rhythm. In fact, some people may not even adjust to the time change after several months. We also rely on the sun everyday without even knowing.
We use it as a way to tell time in our day-to-day lives. It nurtures the food and plants that we need, it keeps our ecosystems growing and it keeps our earth moving. With these shorter and colder days, we see the sun less, which has large effects on us both physically and mentally.
The shorter and colder days can also cause depression to increase in prevalence. The darkness and coldness limits how often we go out and we can begin to feel isolated. As university students, it becomes difficult for many to have the motivation to do work when it feels as though it is night-time and one should be unwinding instead.
This is where seasonal affective disorder comes in, also known as seasonal depression or the winter blues. One way to recognize the symptoms of SAD is if you feel normal during spring and summer, then feel drained with your energy and mood as days get shorter during winter, almost like you want to hibernate.
As the semester is either ending or a new one is starting at this time of the year, our stress is at its peak and the effects of daylight savings can have immense effects on us physically as well.
The lack of sunlight can cause cluster headaches that can cause pain for days or weeks on end. If you’re not getting enough sleep during this transition, this can lead to increased levels of a hormone called ghrelin which regulates hunger and may cause an increase in appetite.
It is important that you keep your mental health in check and professionals recommend taking Vitamin D supplements during this time, seeking help if you need it, eating healthier and maintaining some kind of physical activity during the cold months.
Maintaining a healthy lifestyle, focusing on one’s self and still taking it easy will help immensely. It is a difficult shift for many, but attempting to balance everything in a healthy way can improve one’s physical and mental health during these cold months.
SLEEP SUPERSTITIONS
1. The Commanding Position principle of Feng Shui. Your bed must be as far from your door as possible. So, if you live in a small room and are unable to move into a dance studio, your “chee” will be right out of luck.
2. If you cut your toenails before bed (that includes mani/pedis), your parents will face an unfortunate death before you see them again. Perhaps the person who founded this superstition had a morbid fear of toenail clippings in the bed. It’s gross, yes, but does it warrant parental death?! We think not. Better play it safe though.
3. Think your significant other is cheating on you? Where the swans at? If you think those two sentences are distinctly separated, you’re right. But according to this superstition, they may be more intertwined than we thought. Sewing a swan’s feather into your lover’s pillow is supposed to protect against infidelity. Probably because their sleep will be enhanced by a single extra feather though.
4. Cake underneath the pillow, see the man of your dreams. Apparently you can do a lot while you sleep to control relationships, including the start of one! Sleeping with a slice of wedding cake under your pillow will introduce you to your future husband in your dreams. At least now when you see him, you’ll have the least creepy ice-breaker to get this thang going!
5. Dreaming about teeth is not an invitation for the tooth fairy.In fact, you might need your tooth fairy as a cuddle buddy, because dreaming of teeth means someone is going to die. You won’t know who, but someone will die. This superstition doesn’t take into account the laws of population growth apparently. Regardless, tell your dream to your least favourite plant and it will die instead.
SLEEP DISORDERS
With the stressful season of midterms upon us, troubles with sleep are likely to creep into your habits. Decode your symptoms to see whether you’re simply stressed, sleep deprived or have a major problem on your hands.
SLEEP FACTS
- 2: the number of hours that REM sleep occupies per night. REM usually begins about 90 minutes after falling asleep.
- 10 %: the amount of snorers affected with sleep apnoea- a disorder which stops breathing up to 300 times a night and increases the risk of heart attack or stroke.
- Daylight Savings: the extra hour of sleep received when clocks are put back has been found to coincide with a decrease in the number of road accidents.
- If you do not fall back asleep within 15-20 minutes, you should get out of bed, go to another room and engage in a relaxing activity such as listening to music or reading. Return to bed when you feel sleepy and avoid watching the clock.
- 11 days: the longest someone has gone without sleep. For obvious reason, Guinness has stopped keeping record of voluntary sleep deprivation. Randy Gardner, the record holder, reported hallucinations, short-term memory loss and an inability to focus.
- After 17–19 hours without sleep, performance test results are comparable to those completed by a well over intoxicated person.
- Apparently, the idea of counting sheep to get to sleep might go back to ancient shepherds, who had to literally count their sheep every night before turning in
