After losing an hour of sleep, most of are still dragging, trying to adjust to the Spring ritual of Daylight Saving Time. HBO’s “Last Week Tonight” with host John Oliver gives us a brief history of the tradition, why it is bad for us and asks how is this still a thing?
Time to Kill Daylight Saving
By Matt Sciavenza, The Atlantic
The changing of the clocks-which happened once again Sunday morning-is wasteful, unnecessary, and even dangerous.
More recently, a study of homes in Indiana-a state that adopted Daylight Saving Time only in 2006-showed that the savings from electricity use were negated, and then some, by additional use of air conditioning and heat.
The simple act of adjusting to the time change, however subtle, also has measurable consequences. Many people feel the effects of the “spring forward” for longer than a day; a study showed that Americans lose around 40 minutes of sleep on the Sunday night after the shift. This means more than just additional yawns on Monday: The resulting loss in productivity costs the economy an estimated $434 million a year.
Daylight Saving Time may also hurt people who suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder, depriving them of light in the mornings. “Our circadian rhythms were set eons ago to a rhythm that didn’t include daylight savings time, so the shift tends to throw people off a bit,” Nicholas Rummo, the director of the Center for Sleep Medicine at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mt. Kisco, New York, told HealthDay News. The switchover to Daylight Saving Time is also linked to an increase in heart attacks as well as traffic accidents.
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