Clocks fall back this weekend, should Standard time be the standard?
Posted November 5, 2011 8:38 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
If you are among the chronically sleep deprived, this will be your favourite weekend of the year.
Canadians get an extra hour of sleep because the clocks fall back one hour at 2 a.m. Eastern Sunday.
Dr. Colleen Carney, the director of Ryerson University’s Sleep and Depression Lab, said people need to start prioritizing the need for sleep.
“We know that there are increased mortality rates, there are problems with the immune system, metabolism, cardiovascular heath issues … There are just so many negative consequences with sleep loss,” said Dr. Carney.
Dr. Carney also told 680News, numerous polls show we are a sleep deprived society.
“The studies tell us that people are not spending enough time allocating for sleep. The don’t protect the time just before they go to bed,” said Dr. Carney.
She means powering down the electronic devices and trying to leave the work worries behind.
A good case can be made for making Standard time the standard.
“When you lose an hour the natural body clock is a little but longer than 24 hours, so it’s a bit unnatural to lose an hour. It’s easier when you gain an hour,” Matthew Ebben, a sleep expert with New York Presbyterian Hospital, explained.
Experts say that extra hour of sleep can be healthy.
Swedish researchers studied 20 years of records and found that the number of heart attacks dipped on the Monday after clocks moved back an hour.
For pedestrians, though, the story’s a little different. U.S. researchers have found there are more pedestrian deaths during the evening rush hour in November as we adjust to the earlier darkness.
Experts say the risk drops in the spring when clocks are set back and daylight comes earlier.
In Russia, they’ve eliminated the time change altogether, wanting to reduce stress on people. but, many computers and smartphones changed automatically anyway.
