Hate
daylight saving time? You may have a point, researchers
say
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[March 13, 2017] By
Joseph Ax
NEW YORK (Reuters) - For most Americans,
daylight saving time means only one thing: losing an hour's sleep. So
what is the point?
|
This is actually a reasonable question, according to a growing body
of scientific research.
Daylight saving time is the practice of moving clocks forward by one
hour during summer months so that daylight lasts longer into
evening. Most of North America and Europe follows the custom, while
the majority of countries elsewhere do not.
When clocks in almost all of the United States spring forward by an
hour at 2 a.m. on Sunday, it will likely prompt an increase in heart
attacks and strokes, cause more car accidents and reduce worker
productivity, according to studies. It will also fail to cut the
nation's energy bill, contrary to what the experts once believed.
In December, a psychology journal published results showing that
federal judges handed out sentences that were on average 5 percent
longer the day after daylight saving time began than those given out
one week before or after.
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Disruptions, even minor ones, to human beings' sleep patterns can
have outsized effects, according to researchers.
"Our study suggests that sudden, even small changes in sleep could
have detrimental effects," Amneet Sandhu of the University of
Colorado told Reuters in 2014 after his study of Michigan hospital
data showed a 25 percent jump in heart attacks on the Monday after
daylight saving time began.
Daylight saving time, which runs until the fall, was widely adopted
during World War Two as an energy-saving measure. The rationale was
that a later sunset meant people would spend fewer hours using
lights inside their homes in the evening.
But studies have generally failed to show significant energy savings
associated with the shift.
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Plenty of people expressed frustration on social media on Saturday,
as the prospect of losing an hour's sleep loomed large.
"Daylight Savings Time seems like a communist plot to get us all
confused and tired and thinking the government wants to help us,"
wrote Twitter user Michael Farris Jr.
Abolishing daylight saving time – or conversely, extending it
year-round – would require a law passed by U.S. Congress. States are
allowed to opt out of daylight saving time, but all states are
required to follow standard time from November to March.
Legislators in some states have tried unsuccessfully to pass laws
abandoning daylight saving time, but Arizona and Hawaii are the only
states that do not reset their clocks twice a year. For everyone
else, Sunday morning will come just a little bit earlier than usual.
(Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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