PERSONAL HEALTH : Don’t Worry, You Can Sleep It Off

Rest assured: The weekend’s shift back to Pacific Standard Time is easier on the body than last spring’s shift to Daylight Saving Time. The hardest part of this “fall back” routine--in which we set clocks back an hour before we retired Saturday--is coping with darkness before dinner, sleep experts say.

“Our internal body clock is like an old, cheap watch,” says Dr. Philip Westbrook, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. “It tends to run slow, on a 25-hour cycle rather than 24. And we reset it every day via our exposure to light.”

That partly explains why we don’t suffer as much with the fall time change as the with spring change, in which clocks are pushed ahead one hour. Most people will adjust to this change within three or four days, Westbrook says.

“The absence of light earlier in the evening might make one want to go to bed earlier, particularly the elderly,” Westbrook says. “It’s a good idea to keep on plenty of lights.” Continuing to get up at your usual time will also speed adaptation.

For future reference, how best to spend the extra hour? “Have a sleep-in,” Westbrook advises. “Most of us get less sleep than we need.”