How to Protect Your Team's Well-Being During Daylight Saving Time

Does Daylight Saving Time affect employee productivity?

Yes. The "Spring Forward" time change disrupts sleep patterns and significantly lowers life satisfaction for weeks. Leaders can mitigate this productivity loss by actively encouraging teams to wake up incrementally earlier leading up to the change and establishing clear "home network only" boundaries in the evening to optimize sleep.

Happy (almost) Spring 2021. Time for flowers to start blooming and excitement for warmer and sunnier mornings ahead. While we are working through COVID, as professionals we still have the opportunity to lead by example and show up with confidence. One way to do so is to mentally and physically prepare for the upcoming time change. For a majority of Americans, Sunday, March 14 will be the start of Daylight Saving Time (DST). A time change can impact us mentally and physically for several days or weeks. Research suggests that “individuals in both the UK and Germany experience deteriorations in life satisfaction in the first week after the spring transition.” I am here to help you prepare for this change and implement techniques to make this experience more positive. Here are three things you can do for yourself – and suggest to your teams - starting today to prepare for this change and ultimately “Spring Forward.” Shift your mindset: Typically, we get sad or stressed about “losing” an hour when we “Spring Forward.” I want us to reframe our thinking. We are not “losing an hour” as a result of the spring clock adjustment. We are “adjusting an hour.” There are still 24 hours per day ahead of you. Waking up at your “normal” time on Sunday, March 14 is critical to having a successful sleep pattern to get you through the week. - Recommendation: Schedule something today that you can look forward to participating in on the morning of Sunday, March 14. Make time to get outside and exercise, visit with friends (physically distant, obviously), or schedule a springtime photoshoot with your family. Stay away from phone and computer screens as much as possible; if you must work on the weekend, spend that work time on Saturday, March 13 instead. Encourage your colleagues and teams to do the same. Make small changes week over week: Making habits permanent doesn’t happen overnight. When I started my 150-pound weight loss journey in 2007, I started examining my breakfast and my breakfast only. The same approach works with how we can thrive during a time change. Start slow and with purpose. - Recommendation: Over the next few weeks leading up to the start of DST set your alarm to wake up five minutes earlier. If you typically wake up at 6:00 a.m., set your alarm to 5:55 a.m., the next week at 5:50 a.m., and so on until you wake up 15-20 minutes earlier. Spend that extra time on YOU. Read, meditate, journal, exercise, or get another kind of a quick, early “win” that can set your day off right. Create your “home network only” time every evening: Studies show that time on our smartphones late at night has negative effects on our sleep patterns and daytime productivity. Focusing exclusively on your immediate home network – your family - in the evening can help you sleep better at night and feel more refreshed in the morning. Trust me, your social networks and all your notifications will still be there in the morning! - Recommendation: Set a reminder on your phone every evening that starts your “home network only” time. No more email or scrolling social media endlessly every evening! Please take these recommendations to heart so you can start the next few months of the year on the right foot. Have a wonderful start to the spring, everyone. Be safe. Be kind. Be well.