You feel thrown off by changing the clocks, but are you faking it?

Well, it’s been two days now. As Cher famously said in “Moonstruck,” snap out of it!

If Sunday’s time change and losing an hour’s sleep to join Daylight Saving Time has you feeling tired and out of sorts, statistics back you up. The majority of Americans feel something negative when the time change occurs.

Read More: How NJ can help with early Daylight Saving Time changes

The negatives

About 55% experience tiredness. Worse things, studies suggest your chance of a heart attack and stroke increases. Incidents of drowsy driving go up. Adolescents who have a sleep disturbance this time of year suffer behavioral and learning issues. Slower reaction times lead to increased car accidents.

These negatives go on and on.

Alright. I’m no Johns Hopkins researcher. And you’re not going to like this. But here goes.

I think for many of you, this is all in your head.

There. I said it. Yes, a self-fulfilling prophecy. A placebo effect. You hear studies your whole life that people get tired after the time changes, so you end up feeling tired. “Feeling tired” in a lot of studies is self-reporting and therefore subjective. If you think you’re going to feel tired, you’ll feel it.

What about more clinically proven things, like car accidents or heart attacks increasing? Honestly? Same thing. If you’re convinced by all the years of articles that these things go up after a time change, you can feel subliminally affected by this information. Self-fulfilling car accident, anyone? The mind over body element, I believe, is a powerful thing.

Look, all I know is I’m never affected by it. Never have been. Never once did I feel moody or thrown off or tired after changing clocks either backwards or forwards. And I’m no superior athletic person. Just an average schlub. But, perhaps, just a schlub who doesn’t believe in everything he reads.