DST | A Few Psych Tipz

March 7, 2009 at 10:00 pm · Filed under Australia!, Canadians, England, Europe, Game Play, Healthy Living, LOW Tech, Personal Growth, Poll, U.K., U.S.A. and tagged: Circadian Rhythm, DST, Time

Monday morning may hurt a little more after Sunday's daylight time change that saw clocks wind forward an hour in many parts of the world.

Springing Forward: that one little lost hour can make a big difference, experts say.

Feelings of lethargy and irritability may begin to surface as a result of the change and it could take a minimum of five days to get the body adjusted to the lost hour, say psychiatrists and psychologists.

“You are moving external time forward so you get a dissynchronicity between the internal (body) clock time and the external clock time – our bodies get somewhat confused.”

They recommend shifting bedtime forward 10 minutes a night for five nights to get the internal clock ticking along with the one on the wall and night table.

“When my kids were younger, I very consciously phased advanced their bedtimes a little each day”

The time change can also have a serious and potentially deadly impact on those who have sleep-related problems.

“Sleep deprivation is well known to impair performance and when you have a whole population with one hour of sleep loss you expose those who are on the margins”

“People with insomnia, people who are alcoholic, people with sleep apnea, mothers waking up in the night, people who are pushing it – all those factors get an hour added and it is going to affect the people at their limits already.”

A study that crunched accident data from North America, Europe and Israel found there was a seven per cent spike in serious car crashes the day after clocks moved forward.

This is the third year clocks have moved forward on the second Sunday in March.

The U.S. made the switch from the first Sunday in April back in 2007, partly as an attempt to conserve energy by reducing the after-work load from people turning on their lights.

Most of Canada followed for practical reasons to avoid confusion as a result of the amount of cross-border dealings between the two countries, said Rob Douglas, a physicist with the National Research Council’s Time Standards Group.

Douglas said he doubts the time switch does much for energy conservation. People may not turn their lights on at home after work, but they’re turning on televisions and video games which likely offset any potential savings, he said.

Daylight saving time ends Nov. 1.

For more information on daylight saving time, go to: http://www.timeanddate.com/time/dst2009.html

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[Ed.]  PAY ATTENTION WHILE DRIVING TODAY!

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