The Witmarsum

Issue date: 11/21/08 Section: News

Media Credit: Angie Huston

On the first weekend in November, daylight-saving time ended, and people gained an additional hour. Bluffton students Kaitlyn Crawford and Amy Briggs prefer the fall time change to the one in the spring. "I like the extra sleep," Crawford and Briggs agreed. They both said that they dislike "how it gets dark so quickly."

But did you know that the time change has an effect on people's health? Researchers have studied how the fall and spring time changes affect people's heart health, and it is all about the sleep. After gaining an hour in the fall, there tends to be a five percent drop in heart attacks that Monday. The opposite is true for the spring time change, where an hour is lost. The week following the change to daylight-saving time saw the average of a five percent increase in the rate of heart attacks. The researchers believe the amount of sleep people get lends to this phenomenon. Since the end of daylight-saving time gives an extra hour, people tend to get more rest that weekend, decreasing their chances of a heart attack. Overall, Mondays are considered the days with the most heart attacks because people get less sleep. They tend go to bed later over the weekend, cram in things they need to get done on Sunday night like homework, and get up early Monday morning, starting the week off sleep deprived.

It has also been found that pedestrians fair better when the clocks switch to daylight-saving time in the spring. In the fall, both pedestrians and motorists have to adjust to the shorter daylight hours. As a result, there are more accidents involving pedestrians in the autumn.

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