For most of the United States, we just sprang “forward” an hour, essentially losing an hour of sleep. But, according to a recent study, the time change we not so lovingly know as Daylight Savings Time or DST is actually rather deadly.
And no, I’m not kidding.
Per the American Heart Association, “Scientific researchers have noticed a marked increase in heart attacks and strokes in the days following this time change each year.”
As the AHA explains, DST is the “practice of setting the clocks an hour ahead of standard time to achieve longer evening daylight in the summer months.” however, they claim that the “transition could come with some health challenges.”
Hospital administrations across the state of Michigan were studied and what they found was an increase of 24 percent in heart attacks on the Monday following the switch to daylight savings time.
In Finland, a similar study showed an increase of 8 percent in the overall rate of ischemic strokes for the first two days following the time change.
Now, studies have proven that more serious heart attacks and strokes already occur more often on Mondays than on any other weekday. So, the fact that daylight savings time always occurs on a Sunday, naturally with a Monday following, only makes the whole thing a bit more problematic.
Naturally, the increased health risks of DST have pushed some politicians and those in a position to make permanent changes to call for an end to the practice as we know it.
Marco Rubio and Rick Scott of Florida suggest a permanent DST, meaning that we should be on “summer” time all of the time. And it would seem that most Americans do prefer this idea, on paper at least.
But when an experiment of this was enacted in 1973, there were quite a few complaints, some saying it caused more traffic accidents during the winter months.
Currently, only two US states employ “Standard Time” and don’t use DST: Hawaii and Arizona. All the others “spring forward” and “fall back” an hour each spring and fall.
What do you think? Should we all go to standard time or is DST the way to go?
