You lose an hour of sleep when clocks “spring forward” for daylight saving time on the second Sunday in March. In 2025, that falls on March 9. In 2026, it’s March 8. At 2:00 a.m. local time, clocks jump ahead to 3:00 a.m., effectively cutting your night short by one hour.
How the Time Change Works
The switch happens automatically on most phones, computers, and smart devices. If you have analog clocks or older appliances with built-in clocks (microwaves, ovens, car dashboards), you’ll need to set those forward manually. The practical effect is simple: if you normally wake up at 7:00 a.m., your body will feel like it’s 6:00 a.m. on that Sunday morning. You get the same amount of daylight that day, but sunrise and sunset both shift an hour later.
Daylight saving time then stays in effect until the first Sunday in November, when clocks fall back and you regain that hour.
Not Everyone Springs Forward
If you live in Hawaii or most of Arizona, you can ignore the whole thing. Those states don’t observe daylight saving time. The same goes for U.S. territories including Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Clocks in those places stay the same year-round.
There have been repeated efforts to make daylight saving time permanent nationwide. The Sunshine Protection Act was reintroduced in January 2025, but as of now it sits in committee and hasn’t advanced. Until Congress passes something, the twice-yearly clock change continues.
Why One Lost Hour Hits So Hard
Losing a single hour sounds trivial, but your internal body clock doesn’t adjust instantly. Your brain uses light cues to regulate when you feel sleepy and when you feel alert, and shifting the clock by an hour throws that rhythm off. Most people need two to three days to fully adjust, and some take closer to a week.
The Monday and Tuesday after the spring time change carry measurable health risks. Heart attack risk rises by 10 to 24 percent on that Monday, according to research from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Fatal traffic accidents increase by about 6 percent in the days following the transition, a pattern consistent enough that researchers have estimated roughly 28 fatal crashes per year could be prevented if the spring change were eliminated.
These aren’t caused by sleep deprivation alone. The combination of less sleep, darker mornings disrupting your wake-up cues, and the general grogginess of a shifted schedule all contribute. People who are already short on sleep or who have heart conditions tend to feel the effects most.
How to Prepare Your Sleep Schedule
The most effective strategy is to start shifting your bedtime earlier in small increments during the days before the change. Going to bed 10 to 15 minutes earlier each night, starting three to four days out, lets your body ease into the new schedule rather than absorbing the full hour all at once. So if you normally go to bed at 11:00 p.m., you’d aim for 10:45 on Wednesday, 10:30 on Thursday, 10:15 on Friday, and 10:00 on Saturday night.
Beyond bedtime, a few other habits help your body clock reset faster. Getting bright light exposure in the morning, especially on Sunday and Monday, signals your brain that it’s time to be awake. Avoiding screens for 30 to 60 minutes before bed helps on the other end. And keeping your wake-up time consistent, even on the weekend of the change, prevents your adjustment from sliding backward.
Helping Kids Adjust
Young children and toddlers tend to struggle more with the time change because their sleep schedules are more rigid and their bodies are more sensitive to disruption. A cranky Monday morning is almost guaranteed if you don’t prepare. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends starting about a week before the change, nudging naps and bedtime earlier by just a few minutes each day. For a toddler, that might mean moving bedtime from 7:30 to 7:25 on Monday, 7:20 on Tuesday, and so on through the week.
Keeping the rest of the routine identical helps too. Same bath time sequence, same books, same darkened room. Children rely heavily on environmental cues, so consistency in everything besides the clock gives them an anchor while their internal rhythm catches up. Most kids are fully adjusted within four to five days.