The end of summer time approach, which means shorter days and longer nights. According to a investigation by the Sleep Doctor25% of people said the time change affects their sleep habits. If you’re having trouble falling asleep or staying asleep during a time change, here are some ways to get your circadian rhythm — the body’s internal alarm clock — back on track.

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How to Reset Your Body’s Alarm Clock

To promote healthy sleep hygiene and avoid the consequences of sleep loss after DST, consider following these tips.

1. Don’t adjust your wake-up time right after the time change. After a few days to a week, your body will get used to the new time. Instead, consider taking a short 20-minute nap in the afternoon to give you more energy. Long napshowever, may make you more sleepy.

2. Avoid alcohol, caffeine and unhealthy meals before bed. These substances cause sleep disruptions that prevent you from getting the seven to nine hours of quality sleep you need to maintain your physical and mental health.

3. If you are a early risergo out early in the morning to get some light. Light helps you stay more alert during the day and will reduce your body’s production melatoninwhich causes drowsiness. You might also consider waking up at sunrise. It omits natural light in your bedroom to gently wake you up in the morning, just like sunlight would. This is especially convenient now that the sun rises later.

How Daylight Saving Time Affects Your Body

Your circadian rhythm is your body’s internal clock, which follows a 24-hour cycle. It plays an important role in dictating your sleep-wake cycleand it is strongly influenced by signals from light and darkness. When daylight saving time comes into effect, it can delay your circadian rhythm, making you feel sleepier in the morning while it’s still dark, and more energetic in the evening when the sun stays up later.

If you’ve ever traveled to an area with a different time zone than you’re used to, you’ve likely experienced a similar disruption to your circadian rhythm with what we call time difference. For example, if you travel from New York to California, where there is a three-hour time difference, 9 p.m. seems like midnight to your body and you are much sleepier than usual.

At first glance, a small change in your routine may not seem drastic. However, studies have shown that the disruption caused by Daylight Saving Time can have a huge impact on your sleep hygiene and overall health if you’re not careful.

The consequences of summer time

The average person will sleep 40 minutes less the Monday after the start of daylight saving time, according to a study. In addition to drowsiness, experts have also mentioned (in more serious cases) an increase in work accidents, heart attacksmood swings and even car accidents after the change from winter time (November to March) to summer time. Poor sleep quality and changes in our sleep-wake cycle appear to be driving factors in these events, and that’s a major argument for experts pushing for the abolition of DST.

More Read: Why your internal clock keeps you up at night

The Proposed Benefits of Daylight Saving Time

On the other hand, research has also highlighted the benefits of observing DST. Although the number of deaths in car accidents appears to increase the day after the change from standard time to daylight saving time, they may long-term decreaseperhaps in part because of the longer daylight hours. There also appears to be a decrease in crime for this reason, since crimes are less likely to occur during the day.

Apart from the direct effects on human health, DST also promotes lower energy consumption. A 2008 study The Department of Energy found that four additional weeks of DST saved 1.3 billion kilowatt hours, equivalent to the amount of energy used by 100,000 homes in a year.

As experts continue to weigh in on the pros and cons of DST and whether we should observe it, there are steps you can take to combat its negative side effects.