What to do after losing that precious hour of sleep

Good morning. You're probably not feeling great.

(Or you're in Queensland, in which case: enjoy your restedness while it lasts – you'll lose countless hours of sleep when you're forced to do 8am interstate conference calls for the next six months.)

Daylight saving has come to mess with our sleep cycles once again.Credit:Stocksy

We have just lost an hour of sleep. Some of us surrendered it last night, compliantly winding forward the tiny knobs on the back of our homes' surprisingly numerous clocks. Others had it snatched away by our smartphone alarms in the morning.

No matter how you lost the hour, you'll have to wait until April to get it back. This is a shame because, as a nation, we don't really have much sleep to lose.

A survey of 5000 Australians released by mattress brand Sealy on Wednesday found 77 per cent of Australians reported not getting enough sleep each week, and 45 per cent of us say we sleep six hours or less a night.

Our habits seem worse from Monday to Friday. Data collected by the Sleep Health Foundation – which is celebrating National Sleep Health Awareness Week this week – in 2016 found 23 per cent of people reported their typical weekday routine did not allow them enough sleep. But weekends are where that sleep is made up, particularly those aged 18-34: this group reported sleeping an extra hour, on average, on a weekend night compared to midweek.

Even missing out on a little bit of our needed sleep can affect our wellbeing, says CQUniversity sleep researcher Amy Reynolds.

"The most common things we probably notice are that we might wake up feeling grumpier, or physically more tired," she says. "We can't concentrate as well as usual because we haven't had that sleep we need to rest and recover, and we can be a bit more sluggish."

While Dr Reynolds says experiencing this for one day is "less of a problem", missing out on sleep long-term can have more serious consequences.

"If we are consistently getting not enough sleep we see effects not just on our performance at work, but also our safety on the roads, and health conditions."

Inadequate sleep has been associated with the development of type 2 diabetes, as well as weight gain.

If you didn't get to bed early last night, there are steps you can take to make day one of daylight saving time more bearable.

"Make the bedroom as light as you can, because sunlight sends signals to our body about when to sleep and when to wake up," Dr Reynolds says. "Getting outside and getting some fresh air is also really important. And putting your technology and devices away an hour before bed on Sunday night so that you're ready for a good night sleep."

And there is always the lazy fix for that missing hour overnight.

"If you are waking up on Sunday morning and you haven't accounted for [daylight saving] and you can sleep a bit longer, go for it."

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