Daylight saving time finally ends this Sunday at 2 a.m. — remember to set your clocks back one hour when you go to bed Saturday night — and for many of us, that’s depressing. The day seems to fly by. It’s dark before it’s time to start thinking about dinner.
The seven-month period of daylight saving time is mandated by governments which began implementing the time switch during World Wars I and II to save energy and resources for the war effort. From World War II until recently, daylight saving in the U.S. ran from April until mid-October.
Researchers in Sweden published a report in 2008 in the New England Journal of Medicine reporting that the number of heart attacks jumps during the period immediately following time changes, and that those vulnerable to sleep deprivation should be extra careful.
“More than 1.5 billion men and women are exposed to the transitions involved in daylight saving time: turning clocks forward by an hour in the spring and backward by an hour in the autumn,” according to health and welfare researchers in Sweden. “These transitions can disrupt chronobiologic rhythms and influence the duration and quality of sleep, and the effect lasts for several days after the shifts.”
In the early morning hours of Sunday, Nov. 6, the clocks will be set back an hour, from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m. For an individual who goes to bed at 10 p.m. on Saturday night and awakens eight hours later, they will wake up at 5 a.m. on Sunday morning. It will still be dark, of course, but the sun will come earlier than normal, at 6:30 a.m.
