How Time Change Impacts Sleep

As many across the United States prepare to “fall back” and set their clocks back one hour this Sunday, Nov. 3, sleep experts with UC San Diego Health are available to discuss how time change can impact our sleep and overall health. Adjusting the time by just one hour can result in a disruption to the body’s circadian rhythm that could lead to some health issues. Atul Malhotra, MD, sleep medicine specialist with UC San Diego Health, is available to explain how to manage our health during the time change and when to seek medical help.

Biography :

Atul Malhotra, MD, is a board-certified pulmonologist, intensivist and research chief of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine and internationally recognized expert in sleep apnea. He is active clinically in pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine. In the sleep clinic, Malhotra provides a full spectrum of diagnostic and therapeutic services to patients with sleep-related disorders, including insomnia, restless leg syndrome, narcolepsy and sleep disorders associated with psychiatric conditions.

A professor in the Department of Medicine at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, Malhotra is involved in training medical students, residents and fellows.

He was president of the American Thoracic Society (2015-2016), has taught and presented his research on sleep-related disorders locally, regionally, nationally and internationally and has published more than 310 original manuscripts in leading journals, plus 220 reviews and chapters. He is a principal- and co-investigator on numerous National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants relating to sleep apnea and serves as an ad hoc reviewer for many leading journals, including the New England Journal of Medicine, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, Sleep and the Journal of American Medical Association. To view a full list of his publications, visit PubMed.

Before joining UC San Diego Health, Malhotra practiced pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Brigham and Women's Hospital. He also served as attending physician in intensive care at King Faisal Hospital in Rwanda. He was associate professor at Harvard Medical School and medical director of the Brigham and Women's Hospital Sleep Disorders Research Program.

Malhotra completed his fellowship training in pulmonary and critical care medicine at Harvard Medical School and a residency in internal medicine at the Mayo Clinic. He completed an internship at St. Thomas Medical Center in Akron, OH and received his medical degree from the University of Alberta in Canada.