Daylight Savings Time

Tonight is the night to “spring forward” and set your clocks ahead an hour.  Daylight Savings Time officially begins at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday. 

My wife has said for years that we ought to just move the clocks ahead and leave them there – quit this biannual practice of screwing around with time.  When asked why change it at all, she says that she likes daylight savings time better than standard time, just likes the idea of later sunsets, which I guess is reason enough.

Messing around with time is actually dangerous.  Don’t take my word for it, just read this excerpt from article by Dyanne Weiss:

As shown in numerous studies, the change to daylight savings time can be bad for people’s heart health and performance (whether in school, at the wheel or at work).

The physical problems associated with daylight savings time do not take place on the Sunday when the change occurs. They usually show up on the first Monday, when people have to get up earlier for work or school and really notice the difference in sleep and light outside.

The risk of having a heart attack is 10 percent greater on the Monday and Tuesday after the clock is moved forward than other days, according to the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The converse is true in the fall; when clocks move back an hour, the risk of having a heart attack decreases by 10 percent. A study by scientists at the Karolinska Institutet medical university in Stockholm, Sweden, also reported a difference in the likelihood of having a heart attack at the start and the end of daylight savings. However, they only showed a 5 percent difference in the risk at either time of year. That may seem like a small amount. However, as one Swedish researcher noted in Science Daily, approximately 1.5 billion people reside in areas that make daylight savings clock changes every year, so even a 5 percent increase can be bad for a lot of people’s health.

The reason for the impact on hearts is unknown. One theory is that body cells have their own internal “clock” that gets thrown off by the change but adjusts in a few days. The effect is similar to jet lag.