Even if Spring hasn’t officially sprung yet, the advent of daylight saving time always reminds us that warmer weather is on its way. “Springing forward” and all that.
But that doesn’t mean we feel like springing out of bed when the alarm sounds. Especially these first few days…
As happy as we all are to see the sun an extra hour each evening, this is the one time of year that nearly everyone suffers from mild sleep deprivation. It’s like a small dose of jet lag.
Enacted during WWI to decrease energy use, daylight saving time actually has some not-so-great affects on health and productivity.
As people adapt to an hour of sleep loss, their sleep schedules are impacted in larger ways. Many of us become restless and lose quality as well as quantity of sleep, and therefore suffer drowsiness the next day.
Like any sleep loss, this negatively impacts performance, concentration and memory. So don’t feel bad if you somehow “forgot” to go to the gym on Monday morning before work. We feel ya.
Research has found a spike in heart attacks during the first week of DST as well as an increase in traffic accidents. It follows that when it ends and we get an extra hour of sleep, these things decrease.
Estimates of the economic cost of this lost productivity and other harmful affects range from $434 million to $2 billion in the U.S. alone.
Truth is, daylight saving time messes with our circadian rhythms, which are influenced by the sunshine. And night owls get the worst of it. One 2009 study found it can take up to three weeks for some to adjust.
But you know, we’ve all been doing this for years so we’ll stop whining now. Bring on the Springing! Just let yourself off the hook a bit this week…and try to go to bed early.