Daylight saving time ends Sunday at 2 a.m. and, for most New Yorkers, the trade off is simple: Give up seeing any glimmer of daylight after work for months in exchange for one luxurious extra hour of sleep.
But for some, that extra hour may not be much consolation. For those who suffer from chronic headaches or migraines, any change in sleep patterns can be a trigger, according to Dr. Fred Cohen, an assistant professor of medicine and neurology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Research shows that headaches are just one of several health and safety issues that come up when the clocks change, although some phenomena, such as an increase in heart attacks and car accidents, are more strongly linked to springing forward, when daylight saving starts, and losing an hour of sleep than falling back.
Feeling worse after getting more sleep might be counterintuitive for some, since headaches and other negative health impacts are more commonly associated with a lack of sleep, Cohen said.
“Some people notice, ‘Oh yeah, if I stay in bed and sleep 10, 11 hours, I'll have a headache,’ and most people will be puzzled,” Cohen said. But he explained that any disruption to a person’s sleep habits and circadian rhythm, or 24-hour internal clock, can cause a headache.
Some migraine patients also report that seasonal changes are triggers, and research shows a correlation between emergency department visits for migraines and weather shifts in barometric pressure. When it comes to which season is worse, each patient is different, Cohen said.
Alan Midleton, president of the British Horological Institute, adjusts the time to Daylight Saving Time (DST) on an eastern-inspired longcase clock built by William Hayway in 1730, at the Museum of Timekeeping in Nottinghamshire.
“Going into summer, I have a whole list of patients who have worse migraine attacks because of heat waves and hotter weather, and you bet on the other side of that coin, I have patients who have the same situation with cold weather,” Cohen said.
Paths to relief do exist. For anyone experiencing frequent headaches or migraines, the first step to treating them is to keep a diary of when they occur, how long they last and what makes them better or worse, Cohen said. Some patients benefit from treatments such as melatonin, he added. That over-the-counter pill helps regulate neuropeptides, chemical messengers in the brain that are linked to sleep and wakefulness.
But if sleep changes make you feel off, Cohen said, the answer might be to get up earlier on Nov. 5 – and forego that extra hour of sleep.
