Does Daylight Savings Time Upset Your Bipolar Balance?

[Phyllis]

taken from Bipolar Beat: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/bipolar/

by Joe Kraynak
My wife, who happens to have bipolar disorder, hates Daylight Savings Time. Whether we’re springing forward, as we did this past Sunday, or falling back, it usually upsets her circadian rhythm just enough to trigger a chain reaction toward mania. Simply put, it throws her sleep pattern out of whack.

While she’s waiting for her circadian clock to reset, she usually ups her dose of melatonin and uses other sleep aids to “knock herself out.” She does a pretty good job of getting herself back on track, but it usually takes a week or two.

Does setting your clock ahead or back upset your bipolar balance? If so, what do you do, if anything, to deal with it?

[Phyllis]

I think that DST affects me just like it does other people. You know, the whole, "What a pain in the ass! I'm losing an hour of sleep!" and then I end up sleeping an hour late the next day. LOL Of course, I'm not BP1, so I'm curious how it affects you guys?

[Paz]

 It screws with my balance, no doubt about that. And it sucks big time. 

[Dreamline]

I've been a bitch ever since...last year before I was on any meds it must have wacked me out BIGTIME.  Becuase last year about this time I remember the begining of a manic thing that lasted until june and ended only because I got the flu (probably susceptable from lack of sleep) I was extremely depressed for 3 weeks then went right back up to where I left off and was high as a kite until like september...no crash.