Don’t forget to set your clocks back this weekend — and you might want to add a few other house maintenance items to your checklist, too.
“Fall back” for most states, including Illinois, takes place at 2 a.m. Sunday, when daylight saving time comes to an end. DST will start back up again Sunday, March 14, when we “spring forward” for 2027.
Setting the clocks back for fall typically means one extra hour of sleep. It’s also a good time for get your home ready to winter, experts recommend, including changing the batteries on smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, swapping out furnace filters and winterizing outdoor hoses and sprinklers.
“Going into the cold weather, disconnect all hoses and sprinklers outside,” Precision Today HVAC general manager Jacob Anderson said. “You don’t want to damage those.”
AARP also recommends scheduling a chimney check, rotating your mattress and checking for fire hazards as part of the “fall back” routine.
Auto Club Group AAA warns that daylight saving time could also bring visibility challenges on the roads.
“Drivers can expect a noticeable change in their commute almost overnight,” Spokesman Mark Jenkins said. “Morning sun glare can make it difficult to see the road ahead, while earlier darkness makes pedestrians and cyclists harder to spot in the evening. Slow down, leave extra space and stay focused, especially around intersections and crosswalks.”
How sunset times will change
Just how early will sunsets get after we “fall back?”
On Saturday, Oct. 31 — Halloween — the sun will set at 5:45 p.m., the website timeanddate.com showed.
A day later, clocks will be set back, and the sun will set at 4:44 p.m.
By December 1, the sunset time will be 4:20 p.m.
One tip: Try to get outside for some morning sun — it’ll help your body clock reset faster.
People often find the spring switch harder, losing that hour of sleep we allegedly recover in the fall. But many people also mourn fall’s end of daylight saving time, when days already are getting shorter and moving the clocks can mean less daylight after school or work for exercise or outdoor fun.
But health groups, including the American Medical Association and American Academy of Sleep Medicine, have long urged adopting standard time year-round. That’s because it aligns more with the sun, which rises later in the winter, and with human biology, what’s called the circadian rhythm. Brighter mornings and less light at night are key to keeping that rhythm on track, making it easier to wake up on time and stick with healthy sleep patterns.
Most countries do not observe daylight saving time. For those that do — mostly in North America and Europe — the date that clocks are changed varies. In the U.S., Hawaii and most of Arizona don’t change and stay on standard time.
How the body reacts to light
The brain has a master clock that is set by exposure to sunlight and darkness. This circadian rhythm is a roughly 24-hour cycle that determines when we become sleepy and when we’re more alert. The patterns change with age, one reason that early-to-rise youngsters evolve into hard-to-wake teens.
Morning light is key to synchronizing that internal clock. By evening, levels of a hormone called melatonin begin to surge, triggering drowsiness. Too much light in the evening — whether from later time outdoors during daylight saving time or from artificial light like computer screens — delays that surge and the cycle gets out of sync.
And that circadian clock affects more than sleep, also influencing things like heart rate, blood pressure, stress hormones and metabolism.
How do time changes affect sleep?
Even an hour’s change on the clock can throw off sleep schedules because even though the clocks change, work and school start times stay the same.
Right after the spring change, darker mornings and lighter evenings make it harder to fall asleep on time. Those first few days have been linked to increases in car crashes and even an uptick in heart attacks.
During the fall and winter, some people with seasonal affective disorder, a type of depression usually linked to the shorter days and less sunlight, often struggle.
Many people easily adjust to the clock switch, like how they recover from jet lag after traveling. But a time change can add pressure on shift workers whose schedules already are out of sync with the sun, or those regularly sleep-deprived for other reasons.
About 1 in 3 U.S. adults sleep less than the recommended seven-plus hours nightly, and more than half of U.S. teens don’t get the recommended eight-plus hours on weeknights.
Chronic sleep deprivation is linked to heart disease, cognitive decline, obesity and numerous other problems.
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