If you’re like me, you may have woken up feeling well-rested but also a bit groggy on Sunday morning. And not just because it was a weekend where you got to sleep in, but because you got an extra hour of sleep when most clocks (except the ones in your car or on your microwave) in the country fell back by one hour and put us back on Standard Time. That extra hour was welcomed by many people, but it’s not without its drawbacks. For example, the sun went down at 4:40pm in my city yesterday, and it will continue to set incrementally earlier for the next month and a half until the winter solstice. Early sunsets aren’t the only downside of the time change. There are many health effects that aren’t as enjoyable as feeling like you slept in on Sunday. Clocks reverting to Standard Time can trigger the onset of Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) for millions of people. The shift disrupts a person’s circadian rhythm, the internal clock that governs our wakefulness and sleep cycles. While it may feel like you can shake off the time change, it can take days for your body to fully adjust, similar to when people experience jetlag while traveling across time zones. While the fall shift to Standard time can bring on SAD, the springtime shift to more daylight can be fatal: hospitals see an uptick in heart attacks and car crashes when time jumps ahead in March. |
