Bill's Rules for Adjusting to the Time Change:

Here it is. It takes me about one day to adapt to a time change. I've had plenty of practice: 110 times in my life. That should be enough for anybody.

Rule 1: Practice

Humans are creatures of habit, very easily trained. We want to go to sleep at the same hour every night; wake up at the same time in the morning. Well, I do it a bit differently.

Quite often, I'll head to bed a half-hour to an hour later than usual. But--and here is the catch--I'm up around the same time every morning (from 4:15 to 5:00). That leaves me a little tired. One of the first things I do upon getting up is to look at a clock. Whatever time the clock says it is, that's the time I accept. I do other things, too--vary my eating times, etc. It keeps the schedule fluid and makes you more adaptable to change. I'm up at about the same time on weekends, too; I love it.

It helps if you have a late-night hobby that can distract you. Me, I do DX'ing--listening for AM radio stations at great distances, at night. It's a low-energy hobby, but quite engaging; and, at least in this household, it's become a spectator sport; Tonia loves listening in as I ply the dial. She's begun making log entries for me (that's exciting). The benefit is that my logs are now human-readable. She's beginning to understand the vagaries of signal propagation and probably sharpening her hearing. It's a win-win.

Rule 2: Preparation

Whenever a time change is upon us, I stay up later. That means I'll be still a bit tired when I wake up. That makes it easier to make the change. Again, just accepting what the clock says is a big deal. Here, it's six o'clock in the morning. Yesterday, it would have been seven o'clock. Doesn't matter--the clock says it's six, and that's what I'm going by.

In my experience, there are two daily events that you should try to avoid in the first couple of days following a time change: sunrise and sunset. They are the major arbiters of your perception of time and can reset your circadian clock (your body's internal clock). Try to avoid looking outside from six to eight in the morning, and from four to six in the evening. Big help; take it from me.

Rule 3: Acceptance

I remember, back in my childhood, constantly translating the time during the day. I'd say, okay, it's ten o'clock now; but yesterday this would have been eleven o'clock. No wonder I'm hungry.

Now I say, hey, look, it's getting dark early, and I'm not hungry yet. Oh well.

Again, the most important thing you can do is to learn just to accept what the clock says. Do that, and you've half the battle won!

-Bill