Short answer: go to bed 15 to 20 minutes later for a few nights before the 2 am Sunday time change.
For a quiet half hour in a busy Halloween weekend, you can book a private infrared sauna at NOLA Chill, 6045 Magazine Street in Uptown New Orleans, open 7 days and until 7 pm on weekdays: 30 minutes is $30 on your own or $48 for two, and you pay after your visit.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine advises those later bedtimes for daylight saving time ending at 2 am on Sunday, November 1, then setting the clocks back on Saturday evening, going to bed at your normal time, and keeping the room dim on Sunday morning until your usual wake time.
If you are reading this on Saturday, the Friday step is behind you, so set the clocks back this evening and go to bed at your normal time on the new clock. On Sunday morning, keep the room dim until your usual wake time, because light and darkness are the body’s strongest timing cues and the sun rises at 6:14 am, an hour earlier on the clock than Saturday’s 7:14 am. Once you are up, the academy’s October 2026 article on the fall change says to head outdoors for early morning light in the days that follow, because morning light is what resets the body clock.
Get at least 7 hours of sleep on the nights before and after the change, or 8 for teens. If you are already short on sleep, the academy says to skip the later bedtimes and take the extra hour on Saturday night instead. Children and teens may need more time to adapt than adults, so the academy advises keeping their bedtime routines steady through the weekend.
A weekend plan for the time change, Friday to Monday
Here is the academy’s advice set out day by day for this weekend, with the New Orleans sunrise and sunset times for the steps that depend on the light.
| Day | What to do |
|---|---|
| Friday, October 30 | Go to bed 15 to 20 minutes later than usual, and move dinner and any exercise a little later with it. |
| Saturday, October 31, Halloween | Set the clocks back one hour in the evening, then go to bed at your normal time on the new clock. Your body will feel that as about an hour late, and Friday’s later bedtime makes it a smaller step. |
| Sunday, November 1 | Get up at your usual time on the new clock. Sunrise is 6:14 am, so keep the room dim until you are up, then get outside for some morning light. |
| Sunday night | Go to bed at your usual time, so you start the work week with at least 7 hours of sleep, or 8 for teens. |
| Monday, November 2 | Wake at the same time as Sunday and go easy on caffeine late in the day while your body adjusts. Sunset is 5:13 pm, so for many people the trip home from work is after dark for the first time this fall, and a light and something reflective help on foot or on a bike. |
The bedtime, light and caffeine steps are the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s advice for the fall change, from its daylight saving time page and its October 12, 2026 article on adjusting when daylight saving time ends. Sunrise and sunset are the US Naval Observatory’s figures for 6045 Magazine Street, read on October 29, 2026.
Phones and computers change on their own at 2 am, but the clocks on an oven, a microwave or an older car usually need you, so Saturday evening, before bed, is the easiest time to set them back.
Is daylight saving time on Halloween?
Daylight saving time ends on Halloween night this year: Halloween is Saturday, October 31, 2026, and at 2 am that night the clocks go back to 1 am, so the night runs an hour longer on the clock. If you are out late, the hour from 1 am to 2 am happens twice, which matters if you are paying a sitter by the hour or meeting a ride at a set time.
Halloween is also the last evening of daylight time. Sunset is 6:14 pm and the last of the daylight goes at 6:39 pm, by the US Naval Observatory’s figures for 6045 Magazine Street, so most trick-or-treating is after dark, and it is the last sunset past 6 pm in New Orleans until March 2027.
The extra hour of sleep is smaller than it sounds. In a 2025 study in the Journal of Sleep Research, 11,780 UK Biobank participants aged 43 to 78 wore wrist accelerometers, and on the Sunday of the fall change they slept 33 minutes longer on average than on the Sunday before, not a full 60 minutes. A 2013 review in Sleep Medicine Reviews found little evidence of extra sleep that night and a net loss of sleep across the following week, because the five workdays after the change all start earlier by the body’s clock.
So if Halloween runs late, the extra hour helps, but on average it came to about half an hour of sleep in that study, and the academy’s advice to get up at your usual time on Sunday still applies.
Does the time change in Louisiana?
Yes, Louisiana sets its clocks back one hour at 2 am on Sunday, November 1, like every state except Hawaii and most of Arizona, which stay on standard time all year by the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s list.
Louisiana passed a law in 2020, Act 133, that would keep the state on daylight saving time all year if Congress changes federal law to allow it, and Congress has not, so the law has no effect yet. In Congress, the House passed H.R. 139, the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025, which would make daylight saving time permanent, by 308 votes to 117 on July 14, 2026. The Senate received it on July 15 and sent it to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and the congress.gov record shows no further action as of October 29, 2026. A second bill, H.R. 9638, the Sunshine for Our Kids Act of 2026, would make standard time permanent instead, and it has sat with the House Committee on Energy and Commerce since July 9, 2026.
Until a bill passes both houses and is signed, the clocks keep changing, and the next change is at 2 am on Sunday, March 14, 2027, when they spring forward an hour.
Take extra care after dark next week
The week after the change is the one to take extra care on foot or on a bike after work, because the trip home moves into the dark.
In a 2025 study from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety of fatal crashes in the lower 48 states from 2010 to 2019, fatal crashes involving pedestrians and bicyclists rose 13 percent in the 5 weeks after the fall change, while those involving people inside vehicles fell about 7 percent, and the researchers tied the pedestrian and bicyclist rise to the change in light. Sunset is 5:13 pm on Monday, November 2, by the US Naval Observatory’s figures, so a light and something reflective for walking or riding home is worth having by then.
A quiet half hour in a busy weekend
A private sauna session gives a crowded weekend some quiet, and NOLA Chill is open on both Saturday and Sunday.
The private infrared sauna room at NOLA Chill, 6045 Magazine Street in Uptown New Orleans, holds one to four people and is set to about 175 F (80 C), with the room air usually in the 150s and a lower setting on request. A Saturday morning session fits before an evening out, and from Monday, a weekday appointment after about 5:15 pm is after sunset, with the studio open until 7 pm on weekdays.
A sauna is not a sleep aid, and we found no study that tested one as a way to adjust to the clock change. It is a warm, quiet half hour, and in a 2019 international online survey of 482 sauna users, relaxation and stress relief were among the main reasons people gave for going. The people in that survey chose to answer it, so it shows why sauna users go, not what a sauna does for everyone.
Thirty minutes is $30 for one person or $48 for two, with no membership needed, and you can pay after your visit. A 10-visit pack of 30-minute sessions is $200, and one pack visit covers one or two people, so two friends sharing it pay $10 each a visit; packages can be shared or split and last 12 months.
If you would rather skip the heat, NuCalm is a 30-minute guided audio and eye mask relaxation session for $40. Our sleep and stress reset with NuCalm and the sauna covers how the two fit together, the infrared sauna page has the room details, and every price is on the pricing page.
NOLA Chill is open 7 days: Mon to Fri 9am to 7pm, Sat 9am to 4pm, Sun 10am to 3pm, with off-street parking.
What the research says, and what it does not
We found no trial that compared ways of preparing for the clock change, so the academy’s plan is expert advice built on how the body clock works, not a tested program.
What the research does show is that the fall change is the easier of the two. A 2007 study in Current Biology that tracked the sleep and activity of 50 people for 8 weeks around each change found that both adjusted readily to the fall change, while the timing of activity did not adjust to the spring one, and a 2013 study of 14 university students in Italy who wore activity trackers found that sleep quality fell more after the spring change than after the fall one.
The academy’s 2016 health advisory says the effects on sleep of moving into or out of daylight saving time last about 5 to 7 days, and it advises particular caution with anything that needs full alertness for at least 7 days after a change. Its October 2026 article puts it more simply: most people adjust to the new schedule within a few days, and anyone who regularly has trouble sleeping or feels tired during the day should talk to a doctor.
Who should skip the sauna or ask first
Heat is not right for everyone. Skip the sauna, or check with your healthcare professional first, if any of these apply to you, and step out early if you feel dizzy or unwell.
- A fever or an active illness. Our page on using a sauna when you are sick covers when to wait.
- Pregnancy.
- High blood pressure that is not under control, or unstable heart disease.
- After drinking alcohol, or when you are dehydrated.
- Heat sensitivity, such as with multiple sclerosis.
- Medicines that change sweating, blood pressure or heart rate. A pharmacist can tell you whether yours do.
More for the time change and the dark weeks
- When the clocks change in 2026, and what the earlier dark does to a New Orleans week
- How long it takes to adjust to the time change, about a week for most people
- A private sauna on a cold or rainy day in New Orleans
- A private sauna for two in New Orleans, $48 together
- What a first infrared sauna in cooler weather is like
- When the next cold front reaches New Orleans
- A sleep and stress reset with NuCalm and the sauna
- Our evidence library, with the studies behind every service
How we checked
The date and time of the change and the places that do not change are from the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The weekend plan is the American Academy of Sleep Medicine’s advice for the fall change, from its daylight saving time page and its October 12, 2026 article, and the 5 to 7 day figure is from its 2016 health advisory. Sunrise, sunset and twilight times are the US Naval Observatory’s figures for 6045 Magazine Street, in daylight time for October 31 and in standard time after that. The state law is from the Louisiana Legislature, the two bills and the House vote are from congress.gov and the House Clerk, and the sleep, crash and survey figures are from the studies below. We read each source on October 29, 2026.
- National Institute of Standards and Technology, daylight saving time
- American Academy of Sleep Medicine, daylight saving time and transition sleep tips
- American Academy of Sleep Medicine, how to adjust when daylight saving time ends, October 12, 2026
- American Academy of Sleep Medicine, health advisory on daylight saving time, 2016
- US Naval Observatory, sun and moon data for one day
- Louisiana Legislature, Act 133 of the 2020 Regular Session (House Bill 132)
- Congress.gov, H.R. 139, the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025, all actions
- Congress.gov, H.R. 9638, the Sunshine for Our Kids Act of 2026, all actions
- Clerk of the US House of Representatives, roll call 238, July 14, 2026
- de Lange and others, Journal of Sleep Research, 2025: clock changes and sleep measured by wrist accelerometers in the UK Biobank
- Harrison, Sleep Medicine Reviews, 2013: daylight saving time and sleep
- Kantermann and others, Current Biology, 2007: the body clock and daylight saving time
- Tonetti and others, Chronobiology International, 2013: sleep after the spring and fall changes in university students
- Woods and others, Journal of Safety Research, 2025: daylight saving time and fatal crashes
- Hussain and others, 2019: an international online survey of sauna users
Frequently asked questions
What time do the clocks go back?
At 2 am on Sunday, November 1, 2026, the clocks go back one hour to 1 am. That is the rule in Louisiana and every state except Hawaii and most of Arizona, by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and phones and computers change on their own.
Is daylight saving time on Halloween?
Daylight saving time ends on Halloween night this year. Halloween is Saturday, October 31, 2026, and at 2 am that night the clocks go back to 1 am, so the hour from 1 am to 2 am happens twice and the night runs an hour longer on the clock. Sunset that evening is 6:14 pm in New Orleans.
Do we gain or lose an hour when the clocks fall back?
You gain an hour on the clock, but less in bed. In a 2025 study of 11,780 adults wearing wrist trackers, sleep on the Sunday of the fall change ran 33 minutes longer than on the Sunday before, and a 2013 review found a net loss of sleep across the week that follows.
What time should I go to bed on Saturday night?
Go to bed at your normal bedtime by the new clock. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine advises setting your clocks back on Saturday evening and going to bed at your usual time, after a few nights of going to bed 15 to 20 minutes later.
What if I am already short on sleep?
Skip the later bedtimes. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine says people who are short on sleep night after night should not move their bedtime later before the fall change, and should take the extra hour of sleep on the night the clocks go back instead.
How do I prepare kids for the time change?
Keep their bedtime routine steady. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine, in its October 2026 article on the fall change, says children and adolescents may need more time to adapt than adults, so it advises keeping bedtime routines the same, and it recommends at least 8 hours of sleep a night for teens.
Does the time change in Louisiana?
Yes. Louisiana sets its clocks back one hour at 2 am on Sunday, November 1, 2026. A 2020 state law, Act 133, would keep Louisiana on daylight saving time all year only if Congress allows it, and as of October 29, 2026, the federal bill to do that had passed the House but not the Senate.
Will daylight saving time become permanent?
Not yet. H.R. 139, the Sunshine Protection Act of 2025, which would make daylight saving time permanent, passed the House 308 to 117 on July 14, 2026, and went to the Senate Commerce Committee on July 15, where the record shows no further action as of October 29, 2026. Until a bill passes both houses and is signed, the clocks change as usual, next on Sunday, March 14, 2027.
NOLA Chill is a wellness studio at 6045 Magazine Street in New Orleans, not a medical clinic, and a sauna visit is not a sleep treatment or a treatment for any condition.