Get ready, America. At 2 a.m. Sunday morning, we “Spring Forward,” all in the name of enjoying a little more daylight over the summer months.
As if losing an hour of sleep wasn’t enough to make you want to stay in bed, new research shows that getting up for work after the time change can be bad for your health.
A team from the University of Alabama has been studying the effect of daylight savings on a person’s health.
They found that the abrupt change to your daily schedule increased the risk of having a heart attack by 10 percent. This impact isn’t felt on the Sunday morning as most people can easily adapt their weekend schedule and get up a little later.
No, the risk peaks on Monday when employees have to get up at a set time to get to the office.
Conversely, when the clocks go back in October the risk of heart attack decreases by 10 percent.
“Exactly why this happens is not known but there are several theories,” said Professor Martin Young.
“Sleep deprivation, the body’s circadian clock and immune responses all can come into play when considering reasons that changing the time by an hour can be detrimental to someone’s health.”
Professor Young said night owls need to be particularly careful as they often have more difficulty “springing forward.”
He added: “People who are sleep-deprived weigh more and are at an increased risk of developing diabetes or heart disease. Sleep deprivation also can alter other body processes, including inflammatory response, which can contribute to a heart attack.”
Time changes also affect the body’s circadian rhythm, which stresses the body cells as they struggle to adjust.
Professor Young said: “The internal clocks in each cell can prepare it for stress or a stimulus. When time moves forward, cell clocks are anticipating another hour to sleep that they won’t get, and the negative impact of the stress worsens; it has a much more detrimental effect on the body.”
Daylight savings time 2012 will be in effect from March 11 through November 4, unless you’re in Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, or the U.S. Virgin Islands.
They don’t use daylight savings time.
Related articles
- Daylight Saving Time Messes with Your Body Clock (livescience.com)
- Daylight Saving Time Begins Sunday (losangeles.cbslocal.com)
- Springing Forward with Daylight Savings Could Kill You [Health] (gizmodo.com)
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