The Internet was flooded with the havoc daylight savings time have on our health and sleep patterns. And this is nothing new,-twice a year we go through this ritual of turning our clocks forward in the spring and turning it back in the fall, and many of us dislike it and yet despite widespread distaste it prevails each year. Change takes time and some of us who are millennials today, will probably be lawmakers in a few years and might seek to pass laws to abolish this outdated tradition known as daylight savings time. Then again, we may not want to change it at all when we reach the bowels of power and can affect change.
In the meantime, here is a sample of some very persuasive arguments about the need to abolish daylight saving time:
Richard Feloni from Business Insider
“Health risk and the danger of losing sleep: Insufficient sleep negatively affects an individual’s short-term memory, motor skills, risk management, moral judgment, and productivity. So imagine nearly an entire workforce operating at that level for a day — that’s the Monday after the switch to Daylight Saving Time, argues Christopher M. Barnes, assistant professor at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business.
In a 2009 study Barnes and David T. Wagner took a look at mining industry data provided by the Mine Safety and Health Administration. From the years 1983 to 2006, they looked at 576,292 injuries. Barnes and Wagner found that there were 3.6 injuries more than average on Sleepy Monday, up 5.7%. And these injuries had a real impact on business, resulting in a 67.6% increase in days lost from the average injury.”
Shawn Gordon on SmartData Collective:
“Productivity: What it does have is a deleterious effect on public health and safety. A negative impact on kids performance in school, as many studies show that kids do better in school by starting later in the day and DST is contrary to that. Massive hidden costs and dangers in adjusting delicate computer software systems. Modern life does not require DST. Our lighting energy costs are trivial compared to our other usage like computers and TV’s. Flexible work arrangements and a global economy make shift work mostly a thing of the past. It’s time to move to the 21st Century and drop this anachronistic legislative holdover that was developed by arrogant and self serving men. Write your Sentators and your Representatives and let them know what you think.”
And this title in the Independent written by Payton Guion, might make you sit up straight “Daylight saving time: Why moving the clock forward increases risk of heart attacks”
And a paragraph from the article reads, in part; “A study done by Dr Amneet Sandhu, a cardiology fellow at the University of Colorado in Denver, shows that on the Monday immediately after daylight saving time heart attacks increase by 25 per cent, Reuters reported. On the Monday after daylight saving time ends, heart attacks fall by 21 per cent. Dr Sandhu said the loss of sleep is the likely culprit of the increase of heart attacks seen after the clocks move forward, so make sure you get plenty of sleep on Sunday.”
Soon it will be spring and then the lazy days of summer, barbeques and roadtrips will be upon us. Chances are, many of us will forget the furor of daylight savings time until the fall. That’s when the clocks moves back an hour.
