Not everyone is a fan of Daylight Saving Time, but getting rid of it could have unintended consequences.
Getting up an hour earlier when the clocks spring forward shouldn't be that hard, but it can be.
“A well-rested human being can recover from that in a day,” said Dr. Charles Samuels, Centre for Sleep and Human Performance. “The problem is we are not well-rested and some people really do suffer this time change.”
Samuels says reports of accidents and heart attacks at this time of year are more due to the way we live modern life, rather than the time change itself.
“30 per cent of the North American population runs around with a five to 10-hour sleep debt per week,” he said.
Feeling tired isn’t the only problem. Sleep deprivation can also have other wide-ranging negative effects.
“Number one, we feel tired, number two we feel irritable, number three, we can fall asleep when we are not supposed to like driving to work on Monday morning, so those are neurocognitive effects,” said Samuels. “The other is that as we accumulate sleep debt it changes the way our appetite works and it tends to drive the brain towards high calorie-dense foods so people who are chronically sleep deprived tend to eat food that promotes weight gain.”
Changes could be coming for Albertans regarding Daylight Saving Time. NDP MLA Thomas Dang is drafting a bill that would keep our province on the same time all year round. That bill is expected to go before the legislature in a few weeks.
Before it does, some critics hope some consideration is given to the economic impact such a change might have.
“At a time that we need the most competitiveness for our companies in Alberta, in a very hard energy market, this might not be the right time to jump at a decision without taking some time and researching the subject,” said Frank Cotae, Mount Royal University.
He is worried about getting out of synch with other cities around the world, making it more difficult to serve far-away customers and suppliers.
“What we are exporting are agricultural products, oil products, natural gas products, mining products,” he said. “Let’s ask them what it will do to their operations because an operation that now has to pay overtime to bring folks earlier to work will increase overhead costs.”
Cotae said there are benefits and drawbacks of both staying with or abandoning the time change, and making it work might involve altering it instead to match countries like France, where daylight saving doesn’t come into effect for at least another week.
