More than seventy countries observe daylight saving time, when clocks are set one hour ahead to gain an extra hour of sunlight. A new study from the Lighting Research Center at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute says that later hours of sunlight can delay the production of melatonin, a hormone that flows into your brain and makes you sleepy. Researchers studied the sleep logs of sixteen eighth-grade students and found that the delay in melatonin was linked to a sixteen-minute delay in falling asleep and a fifteen-minute reduction in sleep. Those minutes can add up to a larger “sleep debt”—and just one night of inadequate sleep can alter your functioning and mood the next day.
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