Daylight Saving Time Linked To Heart Attacks

jones_supa (887896) writes "Switching over to daylight saving time, and hence losing one hour of sleep, raised the risk of having a heart attack the following Monday by 25 percent, compared to other Mondays during the year, according to a new U.S. study released on Saturday. By contrast, heart attack risk fell 21 percent later in the year, on the Tuesday after the clock was returned to standard time, and people got the extra hour of sleep. The not-so-subtle impact of moving the clock forward and backward was seen in a comparison of hospital admissions from a database of non-federal Michigan hospitals. It examined admissions before the start of daylight saving time and the Monday immediately after, for four consecutive years. Researchers cited limitations to the study, noting it was restricted to one state and heart attacks that required artery-opening procedures, such as stents."

Comments

Sleep -1?

[eneville]

Go to bed an hour earlier then?

Re:Sleep -1?

[ArcadeMan]

Our biological clocks don't care about our artificial, human-made clocks.

Re:Sleep -1?

[MillionthMonkey]

Until they go beep-beep-beep at 6 AM.

Re:Sleep -1?

[eneville]

You're sticking to UTC by doing so. It's the human made clock that disrupts the biological, just ease into the new pattern.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Anonymous Coward]

My cat is not an artificial, human, made clock, you insensitive clod.

Re:Sleep -1?

[hey!]

Why not go to bed at the same solar time and wake up at the same solar time? This involves waking up earlier than you need to on work days during standard time. But so what? During daylight savings time, spend an hour in the morning in a cafe drinking coffee and reading a novel.

Years ago that would mark you as a weirdo because you couldn't stay up and watch some hot TV show that starts at 10PM, but people aren't slaves to the broadcast TV schedule any longer, so why not do things on your own schedule?

I'm by nature a night owl, but staying up is no big deal for me. Getting up early is a lot more rewarding; everything you like about being up abnormally late is true of being up abnormally early.

Re:Sleep -1?

[trigpoint]

Sounds odd to be honest, I would imagine most peoples sleep will vary by more than an hour on different weekends. Just depends what you have on and how good a night it is at the pub.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's an even better solution: stop making people wake up an hour earlier because they have to get to their jobs that suddenly begin an hour earlier for no particular reason.

The only plausible reason for having DST in the modern world is so that people can get up with the dawn to go to their jobs. But with it beginning so early in the year, on the first day of DST most people have to get up before the dawn, which is just awful. I don't have any hard evidence to back up this idea, but I bet if you moved the DST start date to the end of April (and the end date to the end of August) there would be a lot fewer heart attacks and a lot less complaining.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not "just" the 1 hour itself, it's the additional reminder stress in the back of your mind about being late for something. That's my guess.

Re:Sleep -1?

[ls671]

I know people who are pretty much timed like sheep. I bet these are the most affected.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Immerman]

You're probably right; however, you only getting a few hours of sleep some night and slightly increasing your chances of having a heart attack the next day will be completely lost in the noise. Daylight savings time on the other hand is the one time when almost the entire population gets short-shifted on sleep simultaneously, allowing a moderate 25% increases in a tiny risk factor (having a heart attack *today*) to be observed.

Re:Sleep -1?

[AK Marc]

UTC is not on the human clock either. The human clock isn't 24 hours, but instead, uses the sun as a cue for constant and daily resets. So any 24 our clock is wrong.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Immerman]

For one it doesn't work if you're on corporate time. I spent a couple years in a windowless office, and let me tell you winters sucked - I only worked 8-5, but for a couple months near the solstice dawn was just breaking when I left for work, and the sun was setting about the time I left for home. Lunchtime was the only sun I got to see, and that's at at 35.6N latitude, most of the nation is further north and has it even worse.

These days I am in fact operating mostly on solar time, but daylight savings still meant that 8am went from being an hour or so after sunrise, to having it still hanging on the horizon with only the lit sky providing light. If you presume you need a 30-60 minutes for your morning rituals and getting to work, that means for a few weeks after DST you need to be waking up while it's still dark out, and after you were finally getting to see some sun in the morning too.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Anonymous Coward]

For one it doesn't work if you're on corporate time. I spent a couple years in a windowless office, and let me tell you winters sucked - I only worked 8-5, but for a couple months near the solstice dawn was just breaking when I left for work, and the sun was setting about the time I left for home. Lunchtime was the only sun I got to see, and that's at at 35.6N latitude, most of the nation is further north and has it even worse.

I'm at approx 56N, I awake at 4:00am UTC (+/- 1 minute) every frigging morning as I have done so for a couple of decades now irrespective of whatever the clocks say (only time I don't is when I'm Ill). An asides, there's a wonderful paradox at work here, I get to wake up the cats rather than the usual order of things...

I head to work at 6:30am, leave work at any time between 17:30-18:30, current sunrise/sunset times are 07:11/17:53 here, so occasionally I get to see some spectacular sunrises (weather permitting..) I have some filtered natural light, maybe get to spend part of the day in a room with windows, but have gone for weeks during the winter months where the only time I've seen the Sun is at weekends.

It'll be next month before I start getting some sunlight in the morning before I leave for work, but thanks to the start of BST I'll get to see some nice sunsets over the next couple of weeks..

Re:Sleep -1?

[ColdWetDog]

Yes, and the problem with this analysis is that these folks were probably ** going ** to have a heart attack soon - perhaps next week, this is just one big jolt that, as you note, happens at the same time so pops up out of the noise.

Even if you let everybody sleep on the same scale, you're not really going to change the rate of MI's all that much by killing DST. If you let Americans sleep MORE on the average, then you might see the rate drop. But then they would live longer and cost more, so you don't necessarily want to do that....

Re:Sleep -1?

[ColdWetDog]

What about folks in the high lattitudes? Here in Alaska we're doing +4 - 5 minutes a day. That's 30 minutes a week. In the winter it's the inverse. It's hard to change your habits that rapidly.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Charliemopps]

You don't have kids.

Re:Sleep -1?

[ewibble]

I would hope the majority of heart attacks happen to older people, who are more likely to be retired, weekends may not mean much, the impact may even be greater on old people than 25%.

Re:Sleep -1?

[ewibble]

That is mere speculation, If so you should see a dip heart attacks right after daylight savings, as the people who would have died don't.You don't know, there is no evidence for that. It maybe that daylight savings also increases your chances of having a heart attack over a lifetime. I have no evidence for my theory either.

Re: Sleep -1?

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the whole summary.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Opportunist]

Tell me about it. I took a holiday to find out my "natural" clock. It's closer to a 28 hour cycle than a 24 hour one. In other words, I'm constantly sleepy and unable to fall asleep if pressed into a 24 hour cycle.

One hour give or take is pretty much moot to me, but it may give people an idea what life is like for me ALL the time, not just when an hour gets "taken" from me.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Immerman]

It may be hard to change your habits that quickly, but that's just a cultural thing. Humans, along with every other plant and animal on the planet have been dealing with strictly solar time, with its rapid seasonal changes, for hundreds of millions of years - by this point I suspect our biologies have it mostly figured out, though if you come from more equatorial stock the natives who have an extra few thousand years of evolution adapting them to those near-arctic extremes may have an easier time of it.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell me about it. I took a holiday to find out my "natural" clock. It's closer to a 28 hour cycle than a 24 hour one. In other words, I'm constantly sleepy and unable to fall asleep if pressed into a 24 hour cycle.

One hour give or take is pretty much moot to me, but it may give people an idea what life is like for me ALL the time, not just when an hour gets "taken" from me.

Poor little you. Do you have gluten sensitivity too? Is your inability to eat Paleo all the time ruining your life? What other imaginary ailments plague you?

Re:Sleep -1?

[BitZtream]

When the time change goes the other direction, people aren't forced to adjust to it instantly, and they don't. You don't immediately get an extra hour of sleep. Most people will still wake up at the original time or close to it on their own.

Re:Sleep -1?

[eneville]

The kids age the parents, it kills us off young, leaving valuable resources for the next generation, else the world would be over populated.

Re:Sleep -1?

[MillionthMonkey]

You mean they actually put clocks on the walls of solitary confinement cells?

Re:Sleep -1?

[hey!]

I'm suggesting you keep time according to the solar hour angle (e.g. the angle between a great circle intersecting the sun and both poles, and the celestial meridian which passes through your local zenith). I'm not recommending you keep time according to the elevation of the Sun relative to the local horizon.

In a nutshell: if possible, contrive your schedule so you can act as if nothing is changing. Don't get up earlier because the sun rises earlier, or because we're changing from daylight savings to standard.

Naturally, this won't work for people living in very high latitudes whose job requires them to be working at sunrise. But it won't work for people doing shift work either.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Immerman]

How is that a problem? Do they claim anything to the contrary? I'll admit that I didn't RTFA, but my impression is that they're using a truly massive experimental population to establish a short-term causal connection between sleep deprivation and heart attack risk. Did the original study propose that doing away with DST would result in a net decrease in heart attack deaths? That's the only way I see any "problem".

Re:Sleep -1?

[AK Marc]

When I was in college, I saved money renting a closet for a bedroom (not sure what a legal definition of "bedroom" is, but the room was large enough for a bed, and contained no closet, and no windows). With no windows, and on a college student's schedule, I dropped into a routine well beyond 24 hours, and it screwed with my mind something fierce.

I think it'd be interesting to have people cut off from all sense of time and see where the natural rhythms lay.

Re:Sleep -1?

[hey!]

Sure it works for people on corporate time. Your problem with not seeing the Sun is caused by your *work* schedule, not your *sleep* schedule (not to mention your lousy office).

I've actually been in the same position, working in a windowless lab with no wall clock. This was in the days before computers didn't have battery backed up clocks and boot roms. I'd come into work, load the bootstrap program in through the front panel switches and if I didn't have a watch on I'd work until I was done with what felt like a day's work. Then I'd go out, not knowing whether it was day or night outside.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Windwraith]

Tell me how. No matter how hard I try or how long I stay in bed, I am totally unable to sleep until 15-16 hours have elapsed after waking up. And if I manage to fall asleep, I'll be wide awake but tired as hell after 2-3 hours tops.

Sleep is not the same for every person. It varies wildly from individual to individual. That's why people always shuns sleep disorders as some form of misconduct instead of a legitimate problem (until they gain a sleep disorder themselves, if that happens they'll suddenly understand).

Re:Sleep -1?

[Immerman]

My mistake, as your reply to ColdWetDog points out you're talking about mean solar time, whereas I was considering traditional apparent solar time where a "day" is defined by dawn-to-dusk and hence varies in length over the course of the year.

For MST you have a different problem - if you need an hour in the morning to get to work at 8am DST then that means year-round you need to get up at 7am DST = 6am MST, which means all winter you're waking up an hour early for no good reason, and presumably spending considerably more energy to heat your house to a comfortable daytime temperature during the coldest part of the night to boot (you do crank down the thermostat overnight, right?). Maybe not an issue if you're an extreme morning person and get up a few hours early on a regular basis anyway, but I know very few people who do such a thing on a regular basis - most would prefer to get up at or after dawn and have their free time in a single uninterrupted block in the afternoon/evening.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Opportunist]

The uncontrollable urge to kick idiots in the nuts. But I usually find out they have no balls before I start to swing.

Re:Sleep -1?

[CrimsonAvenger]

If you let Americans sleep MORE on the average,

If you LET them sleep more???

You are aware that pretty much all of us get to set our own bedtimes, right? If you want an extra hour of sleep every night, noone is stopping you from going to bed an hour earlier.

Hell, even if you're a kid living with your parents, I'm willing to bet that your parents won't get upset with you wanting to go to bed an hour earlier....

Re:Sleep -1?

[ilikejam]

Michel Siffre's been there, done that:

http://www.cabinetmagazine.org...

Re:Sleep -1?

[Anonymous Coward]

So have you come out of the closet yet?

Re:Sleep -1?

[geekoid]

There are issues with that. The first and formost being taking someone out of their 'natural' environment and putting them in a cave only shows the cycle when in a cave.

I think it would be better to take people and just dong give them any responsibilities, them come on go and see what cycle they fall into.
You put someone in a place where there is bright sun early in the morning they wake up earlier.

Re:Sleep -1?

[geekoid]

IF by entire population you mean idiots who don't see it coming and thus don't take measure to adjust, then yes.

Re:Sleep -1?

[ceoyoyo]

Your built in clock doesn't match the day/night cycle either. Kept in an artificially lit (or dark) environment, humans will follow sleep cycles that are longer than 25 hours (the actual period seems to vary with a lot of things, including age). Both the sun and clocks are external time sources that the body will sync to.

Re:Sleep -1?

[geekoid]

well, if you would RTFA you would see that they talk about problems with the study.
which are:
A) Go read the damn article.

To my mind,This data is good enough to warrant looking at the data on a nation wide scale.
Something they should be to hard. I worked at a place what wrote software for tracking patients. We would look at the data from over a dozen hospitals admissions for over 10 years and find interesting things.
For example, fri' 13th is just another day, as are full moons.
I dont ever seeing any number jumping out for DST; but I don't think I specifically looked for it.

Re:Sleep -1?

[geekoid]

It's highly likely we have only been working based on where the sun is since the dawn of agriculture. That's when getting up at sunrise was needed.

Re:Sleep -1?

[geekoid]

In those days, most people had a watch.

Re:Sleep -1?

[ceoyoyo]

It's not a problem with the analysis. The problem is with the interpretation that a lot of "DST is evil!" people will put on it.

Re:Sleep -1?

[ceoyoyo]

Changing by half an hour a week isn't so bad. Getting an hour a night sleep during the summer will screw you up though.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's always twelve o'clock, twelve o'clock at my house.

Re:Sleep -1?

[pslytely psycho]

Good point. Now there should be a follow up study that includes AK as you have such an accelerated time shift and AZ as well since they do not observe the time change.
It would be interesting to see if the findings would hold up under a larger group. (State by state, latitude, etc.)

I know I hate DST, and this sums it up so nicely:
http://blog.onlineclock.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/daylight-savings-indian.jpg

Re:Sleep -1?

[mrxak]

Until you start looking at how many hours of homework kids are assigned.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Nehmo]

...everything you like about being up abnormally late is true of being up abnormally early.

To each his/her own. IOW, I don't agree when it comes to myself.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Anonymous Coward]

"You don't have kids." => the discussion ends here :-) no further questions

Re:Sleep -1?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be silly. Who is going to pass up a perfectly legitimate excuse* to get into work late?

*Claim you caught the same bus as usual, but there was extra traffic on the road due to everyone else slept in and jumped in the car, clogging up the roads.

Re:Sleep -1?

[dryeo]

Over tired people will have a tendency to use the extra hour for sleep. I've seen a similar study that showed the automobile accident rate went up 14% when daylight savings time started and dropped 14% when it ended. Averages out but shows being deprived of that hour makes people more accident prone and the extra hour less accident prone.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Zontar The Mindless]

Hej hallå där, Anonymous Bonehead!

I cordially invite you to come and live in the wonderful Kingdom of Sweden for a few years and see just what it's like what to bob back and forth between 18-hour days in summer and 6-hour days in winter.

*Especially* if your natural clock is already a bit off from the 24-hour norm, like Opportunist's--and mine.

Then we'll talk. :^)

Re:Sleep -1?

[Rinikusu]

You should read up on second sleep: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazi...

The whole "we are meant to sleep for 8 contiguous hours" might just be an invention of the industrial age. Now that'd be interesting for the paleo folks to embrace, as well...

Re:Sleep -1?

[aztracker1]

I've had a couple occasions where I had a really tight deadline, and I pretty much worked/ate/slept as I saw fit.. when I was tired, I slept, when I was hungry I ate (specifically walking away from my workspace, and taking the time to eat)... the rest of the time I worked. It turned out that each day started about 4 hours after the previous.

I don't think it's natural at all for us to sleep only at night... if you look at cats/dogs they don't sleep like that, I can't think of many animals that do. From what I've observed and understand it's likely far more natural to take shorter restful sleeps of 3-5 hrs multiple times a day joined with relatively short naps of 20-45 minutes. We force ourselves into the cycles we have, and most people I feel are much worse off for it. All for the sake of an 9-5 workday.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Rakarra]

The only plausible reason for having DST in the modern world is so that people can get up with the dawn to go to their jobs. But with it beginning so early in the year, on the first day of DST most people have to get up before the dawn, which is just awful. I don't have any hard evidence to back up this idea, but I bet if you moved the DST start date to the end of April (and the end date to the end of August) there would be a lot fewer heart attacks and a lot less complaining.

Better yet -- DST all the time. No time switches. Standard time sucks.

Re:Sleep -1?

[CrimsonAvenger]

Don't know about you, but my kid was never assigned six+ hours of homework a night, and it would take that much to keep her from getting nine or ten hours of sleep if she wanted to.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Rennt]

Mortality might average out over a year of the typical eight hour day - savings-time adjusted... but maybe we should all just work an hour less 'ery day and survive around 14% less accidents all the time

It turns out certain kinds of efficiency are more welcome than others.

Re:Sleep -1?

[TheCarp]

> You put someone in a place where there is bright sun early in the morning they wake up earlier.

Put me in a place where there is bright sun early, and.... I hang curtains.

Re:Sleep -1?

[LanMan04]

My cat is not an artificial, human, made clock, you insensitive clod.

Cat? Try 6- and 3-year-old children!

Re:Sleep -1?

[TheCarp]

Some claim that even sleeping through the night is unnatural and the result of artificial light allowing us to stay up longer hours and get more tired, saying that it used to be much more common for people to go to sleep around dusk, and then awake and be up for some time in the middle of the night; then sleep again until morning.

Not entirely sure I buy it or that the evidence for it is so strong but it doesn't seem entirely far fetched either.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Quirkz]

Left basically on my own for a week during a college spring break I unintentionally fell into this cycle and lived through six 28-hour days over the course of seven actual days. It was a little disorienting, particularly when it came to figuring out when and how to eat at odd hours, but it felt right in a lot of ways. I haven't had many chances to try it since, so I don't know if it was just coincidence or is really my natural cycle. At another point in my life I fell into a fairly comfortable rhythm of going to bed at 2-3 a.m. and getting up around 10 a.m., which is a little more constructive in dealing with the outside world, but unfortunately doesn't match your typical 8-5 job, and didn't last.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Quirkz]

I've heard it, too. There are references in literature to "the second sleep" which faded away in recent centuries. That second sleep being after people had their first sleep, then spent some time awake in the dark doing whatever, and then went back to bed to finish off the night.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Kyont]

I read somewhere (um, citation needed) that yes, the CIA sometimes keeps clocks in a location visible from solitary confinement cells. And then, as one of the many ways of breaking people down and messing with their minds, they deliberately slow or speed the clocks for hours at a time. When the fluorescent lights are on 24/7, hard to judge whether the clock is wrong or if you're just losing your sanity. Sounds pretty effective to me.

Re:Sleep -1?

[cwsumner]

Tell me about it. I took a holiday to find out my "natural" clock. It's closer to a 28 hour cycle than a 24 hour one. ...

Which obviously means that your family is not originally from this planet !
(Just kidding... I think...)

Re:Sleep -1?

[Opportunist]

I can only hope. I mean, I don't want to be related to all those idiots around here.

Re:Sleep -1?

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends on the latitude. Here at 60N, moving the clock one hour is just right to make waking up around 7 coincide with sunrise again. While sunrise around the summer solstice is still in the middle of the night it helps the transition a little bit at least.

Must prove

[Anonymous Coward]

Must prove that the risk of a heart attack won't simply average out the same, in order to prove that this is a knock against DST. There's plenty of people at risk of a heart attack, and keeping an hour of sleep isn't going to change all of the other risk factors.

Re:Must prove

[interkin3tic]

I would think an even dispersal of heart attacks would be preferable to spiking them on one day due to hospital resources. Plus, causing heart attacks to happen sooner than they would have is also bad. If it happens six months earlier than it would have otherwise, that's six months a patient might have been able to mitigate those risk factors.

With so many people running off smartphones and computers rather than watches, I feel like we could probably soon manage to move away from a on/off switch. Have dawn in each time zone be, say, 7 AM each day, have the time adjusted between 3 and 4 AM each night, it would be, what, a few minutes difference each night at most?

I doubt we ever WOULD move to something like that. It might be amusing to see Obama propose that just to see what republicans would say about it. And aside from heart attacks, I don't really see much reason for it aside from I like more light in the evenings. But I think we definitely could do it.

A simpler cure

[petes_PoV]

Surely this isn't linked to the time people go to bed and rise, but the amount of sleep they get.

So to reduce the risk of a heart attack, just get more sleep.

Re:A simpler cure

[HBI]

Sure, having 300 million people go to sleep an hour earlier is MUCH simpler than just not having the same number of people adjusting clocks twice a year, and all the IT infrastructure associated with same.

I admire that logic.

Re:A simpler cure

[Zontar The Mindless]

I think it's heaps simpler not to fuck with the clocks, and to let people make their own decisions about bedtimes.

Re:A simpler cure

[khasim]

The problem is that people's "biological clocks" become accustomed to a specific cycle. They cannot be changed overnight.

Re:A simpler cure

[lgw]

Surely this isn't linked to the time people go to bed and rise, but the amount of sleep they get.
So to reduce the risk of a heart attack, just get more sleep

The is how "morning people" have been misunderstanding "night owls" for centuries. Here's why you're wrong: I cannot go to sleep on demand. I can wake up on demand, thanks to my alarm clock, I can stay up later than my body wants me to, but I cannot make my body go to sleep any earlier than it wants to (without addictive drugs).

So, yes, if you fuck with the clocks like an inconsiderate fucking fucker, I'll lose an hour of sleep. Nothing I can do about it. And since it takes me a few days to adjust to getting up 1 hour earlier (the norm is only 1 day per hour), I miss an hour's sleep for a few days after the clock change.

Re:A simpler cure

[LordLimecat]

The amount of daylight your body gets ALSO affects your biological health and circadian rhythm.

Re:A simpler cure

[FireFury03]

Surely this isn't linked to the time people go to bed and rise, but the amount of sleep they get.

So to reduce the risk of a heart attack, just get more sleep.

It seems likely to me that the people who had heart attacks after having an hour less sleep were probably going to have a heart attack *anyway* and the shorter night just stressed their body enough to make it happen marginally sooner. So if the clocks hadn't changed, maybe they would've only lasted a couple of days longer.

Similarly, the people who didn't have a heart attack on the day when they got an hour more sleep may well go on to have their heart attack a few days later.

Re:A simpler cure

[fremsley471]

I pretty much can fall asleep when I like, within boundaries. Normally it's off to bed at 2300, awake at 0700. But I can go to bed tonight at 2100, knowing I'll fall asleep in no more than 30 minutes and my body will wake me up at 0530.

But then except for a trains and planes, I haven't used an alarm clock in over 5 years.

Re:A simpler cure

[FireFury03]

I think it's heaps simpler not to fuck with the clocks, and to let people make their own decisions about bedtimes.

The problem with "let people make their own decisions" is that it's rarely your own decision. I work 9:00 - 17:30, not because those are the hours I want to work, but because they are the hours that most people work and my customers expect me to be contactable during "normal office hours".

Re:A simpler cure

[Concerned Onlooker]

"...affects your biological health and circadian rhythm"

True, but in a 13 or 17 year cycle who is going to notice an hour?

Re:A simpler cure

[caluml]

300 million people

It also happens in other countries.

Re:A simpler cure

[Immerman]

Perhaps we could instead change DST to kick in Friday evening instead, then most people at least have a couple mornings for their schedule to adapt gently before they have that Monday-morning alarm forcing them into compliance.

Re:A simpler cure

[taxman_10m]

For me the problem is most likely that because I miss that hour of sleep I'm only making it through the day with vast amounts of coffee. Which then makes me wired.

Re:A simpler cure

[sjames]

That's why the change happens on the weekend.

Re:A simpler cure

[bill_mcgonigle]

So, yes, if you fuck with the clocks like an inconsiderate fucking fucker, I'll lose an hour of sleep.

Yes, but what you fail to understand is that people have to go to work, and the times of day and night shift over the year. It's not like businesses could just adopt "winter hours" and "summer hours" - everybody must upset their entire day to accommodate it.

Well, except for Home Depot, Walmart, all the parks, and all those businesses that do have different summer hours. But nobody else could possibly do that - it would be pure anarchy. I mean, children wouldn't even get to go to sleep while it's till light out in June if we did something crazy like keep the clocks the same all year!

Dozens of lives lost to heart attacks (and the few billion in admin time) is a small price to pay for the soothing hand of Congress regulating our clocks twice a year.

Re:A simpler cure

[Anonymous Coward]

So, yes, if you fuck with the clocks like an inconsiderate fucking fucker, I'll lose an hour of sleep.

In general, yes, but in this case they tell you in advance when they're going to fuck with the clocks. This makes a big difference.

Nothing I can do about it.

Not true: Get an alarm clock that lets you linearly change your wake-up time, and find a hobby that you can do in the morning for a duration of 1 to 59 minutes.

Re:A simpler cure

[oursland]

Good for you. Do you want a cookie?

Re:A simpler cure

[khasim]

That's why the change happens on the weekend.

Read TFA about heart attacks increasing on the Monday after the change.

Re:A simpler cure

[sjames]

That's because people punt the problem to Monday rather than adjusting over the time provided.

Re:A simpler cure

[fremsley471]

Yes please, I will have it with milk before I lay my head down for unclouded dreams of delight.

95% of all food/environment-related health research misses the elephant in the room; the hard to quantify effects of personal stress. This study shows that stress, by variation to routine, kills people. My remarks were there to illustrate that sleep cycles driven by routine are unnatural because we make them so.

It's always galling when the media focus on rich, busy people, on how stressful their lives are, It's the poor bastards at the bottom who are most stressed and have the worst health outcomes. Any research that draws attention to this is to be welcomed.

Re:A simpler cure

[Charliemopps]

The greatest thing about CFLs is how easy it is to make sun lamps now. Remember where we're from... we're designed for very long, sunlight filled days most of the year.

Re:A simpler cure

[lgw]

When the onset of DST ("daylight deposit day") was stable, that was one thing, but now congress feels the need to change it just to show the people who's boss. Now it's a wonderful surprise of a Sunday morning.

Re:A simpler cure

[FuzzNugget]

"morning people"

You misspelled "minions of Satan"

Re:A simpler cure

[BitZtream]

That's because people punt the problem to Monday rather than adjusting over the time provided.

The time change occurs on Sunday morning at 2am ... so thats one wake up between when the change happens and Monday. If you start prepping before the time change you still only get ... 2 wake ups to 'adjust'

Its rather stupid to pretend that one or 2 days is a great difference in the process.

Pretending that people actually have enough time to do so is dishonest at best.

Re:A simpler cure

[MillionthMonkey]

I guess you don't have a microwave.

Re:A simpler cure

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? The DST change of 2007 was announced 2 years earlier. If congress feels the need to change it again, they'll give another advance warning.

Re:A simpler cure

[Opportunist]

I'm contactable during normal office hours. That they ain't the normal office hours in your time zone isn't my problem!

Re:A simpler cure

[Opportunist]

Hey, if you want me to adjust an hour, I do it on YOUR time. Not on MINE.

If I wanted to adjust my clock an hour to and from every now and then, I'd adjust at my time.

Re:A simpler cure

[Opportunist]

Lucky you. I cannot even fall asleep "on time" when it's not the "fuck with the clock" time of the year. My body is on a 28 hour rhythm. Nothing I do can change that (and trust me on that one, I tried!).

I'm already short 4 hours of sleep every day already. Shifting another hour in doesn't really improve that ratio.

Re:A simpler cure

[Opportunist]

I envy you for that ability to sleep "at command". I cannot.

I took my time during a holiday to test myself. I blocked out any sunlight, wrote a tool that allows me to do a time stamp when I wake up and when I go to bed (i.e. when I'm tired) and took away any and all abilities I could possibly have to tell the time so I cannot be influenced by what "should" be my cycle.

The result was that, if given the chance, I live on a rather stable 28 hour "day" cycle (with a difference of less than 30 minutes per 28 hours). So if you want to know what "normal" life is like for me, switch to a 20 hour "day" cycle (i.e. go to bed 4 hours early today, 8 hours early tomorrow, 12 hours early the day after that...) and tell me just how well that goes down for you.

Re:A simpler cure

[sjames]

So wake up a bit earlier on Saturday morning too. You could even start the week before if it's that much problem for you so you have a head start on the weekend.

If your personal schedule is so busting at the seams that you can't manage that, you have larger problems that will probably lead to an early death anyway.

Re:A simpler cure

[Anonymous Coward]

The greatest thing about CFLs is how easy it is to make sun lamps now...

yes, but..

Remember where we're from... we're designed for very long, sunlight filled days most of the year.

Speak for yourself...

genetically I'm one of those weird northern types, you know, the ones who burn easily when the sunlight levels go above the intensity of a 40 watt bulb, and who get really uncomfortable when the temperature goes north of 9 Degrees C..and I get that from my mother's side of the family, mostly Irish descent, she was the same.

Re:A simpler cure

[Anonymous Coward]

So wake up a bit earlier on Saturday morning too. You could even start the week before if it's that much problem for you so you have a head start on the weekend.

If your personal schedule is so busting at the seams that you can't manage that, you have larger problems that will probably lead to an early death anyway.

as it says in TFA
'..People who are already vulnerable to heart disease may be at greater risk right after sudden time changes, said Sandhu..

Re:A simpler cure

[ceoyoyo]

So don't sleep in an hour in the fall. Spend all winter getting up an hour earlier than you have to. In the spring, don't do anything.

I don't understand people who whine about daylight savings time.

Re:A simpler cure

[HangingChad]

So, yes, if you fuck with the clocks like an inconsiderate fucking fucker, I'll lose an hour of sleep.

I don't have to set an alarm and I still hate that damn time change. There's no reason for it anymore. Thanks to lights on tractors and a GPS system that actually steers the harvester, farmers can work all night if necessary.

Stop the insanity.

Re:A simpler cure

[Anonymous Coward]

Get an alarm clock that lets you linearly change your wake-up time, and find a hobby that you can do in the morning for a duration of 1 to 59 minutes.

Masturbating for 59 minutes may increase your heart attack risk too.

Re:A simpler cure

[ashpool7]

That's why the change occurs on Sunday morning, not Monday...

Re:A simpler cure

[LordLimecat]

Those are cicadas, not circadians.

Re:A simpler cure

[LordLimecat]

Sunlamps arent quite the same thing. They help, but (for one) they do not trigger vitamin D production.

Re:A simpler cure

[aXis100]

I'm envious too. I rarely sleep well.

I've never tested myself thoroughly but I think I'm about the same. Given the opportunity I'm not tired until 2 or 3 hours after my normal bedtime, so approx a 26 or 27 hour cycle. On weekends I'll let this wind out but it's a harsh reset on Sunday night to get back into the week's routine.

Re:A simpler cure

[thegarbz]

Man I hope you don't ever take an international flight. Your brain may completely implode if the clocks suddenly changed 2 or 3 hours in one go.

Here's a thought when winter comes around, when you change your clocks forward an hour, change your alarm back an hour. Do yoga or something to relax your poor abused body.

Me? I get up at sunrise. I don't care for your "clocks" the alarm goes off when it's time to get into the car and go to work, it never goes off to wake me in the morning, and you know what? I'm far more relaxed when I don't get woken by a blaring piece of electronics at panic-it's-work-time-o'clock.

Re:A simpler cure

[jhol13]

And since it takes me a few days to adjust to getting up 1 hour earlier (the norm is only 1 day per hour), I miss an hour's sleep for a few days after the clock change.

This is something I just cannot understand.

First, the human internal clock is not 24 hours. Second, the sunrise and sunset move by an hour in two to three weeks (depending where you live), so it cannot be Sun related (not that you claim it is - but some do). Third, if you move to different time zone, say two hours off, you will notice pretty much nothing in the next day. Fourth, in the Autumn nobody claims they "must go to bed and wake up hour early" or "clock is off for weeks".

So I do not claim you do not have the problems you mention, but I think it is more because you look at the clock "I cannot go to sleep this Sunday earler than one hour late".

BTW, AFAIK melatonin is not addictive, whether it helps or not - I wouldn't know.

Re:A simpler cure

[GodfatherofSoul]

Way to step on the joke, LordLAmecat!

Re:A simpler cure

[Smauler]

Remember where we're from... we're designed for very long, sunlight filled days most of the year.

Everywhere on Earth has an average of 12 hours sun a day averaged over a year.

Re:A simpler cure

[mpe]

I don't have to set an alarm and I still hate that damn time change. There's no reason for it anymore. Thanks to lights on tractors and a GPS system that actually steers the harvester, farmers can work all night if necessary.

The requirement to mess with clocks twice a year didn't come from agriculture in the first place. WIth many activities on farms continuing to use actual local time even after the establishment of "timezones". The concept is far more recent. IIRC it only started in the 20th century.

Re:A simpler cure

[dryeo]

It's nice for the kids to walk to school in the light. Though for where I am it might be best to always be on DST.

Re:A simpler cure

[Zontar The Mindless]

So, if I understand you correctly, the time you have to be at work the next day automatically determines your bedtime the previous night and you've no choice at all in the matter.

Re:A simpler cure

[rastos1]

I cannot go to sleep on demand

Do what I do: build a sleep deficit. I can fall asleep anytime anywhere.

Re:A simpler cure

[Zontar The Mindless]

No, I don't have a microwave. As it so happens, I have two of them at the moment.

But I'll happily trade one of them for some hint as to what this has to do with my previous post.

Re:A simpler cure

[Rakarra]

This is what I've been saying about the DST ker-fuffle for years: We have found that it is far far easier to change the definition of the hours twice a year than to convince businesses that they should open earlier/later as the seasons change. They are far too wedded to the "9-5" notion, so we have to change what 9am actually means in order to have an evening in the summer months.

Re:A simpler cure

[Rakarra]

Yes, but what you fail to understand is that people have to go to work, and the times of day and night shift over the year. It's not like businesses could just adopt "winter hours" and "summer hours" - everybody must upset their entire day to accommodate it.

Yeah, this is what I've been grumbling about for years myself. It's just easier doing it the DST way.

Well, except for Home Depot, Walmart, all the parks, and all those businesses that do have different summer hours. But nobody else could possibly do that - it would be pure anarchy.

Ooooh, this is a good point! Oh my God, I want to hug you! We'll be friends forever.

I mean, children wouldn't even get to go to sleep while it's till light out in June if we did something crazy like keep the clocks the same all year!

Wait... WAIT. Are you advocating abolishing DST and going with standard time the entire year? No fucking way. You can pry my glorious, DST summer from my cold, dead hands. I'm no fan of time zone shifts, but I sure as hell will go with standard/DST if that's the only alternative. That's it, our friendship is OVER.

Re:A simpler cure

[FireFury03]

I'm contactable during normal office hours. That they ain't the normal office hours in your time zone isn't my problem!

It becomes your problem when you lose all your customers.

Re:A simpler cure

[Anonymous Coward]

300 million. I love it.

Re:A simpler cure

[i kan reed]

A guess:
Microwaves do not "self update" for DST, which is the technically simpler way of "not fucking about with clocks" per your previous post. They were contending that you completely ignored all the clock-fucking you did yourself, or were somehow miraculously free of a situation where you'd be familiar with it.

Re:A simpler cure

[Anonymous Coward]

So why are nigger's who live closer to the sun black?

Re:A simpler cure

[Anonymous Coward]

We don't have daylight savings time at all here in Japan, and everything seems to work out fine. Businesses generally don't have "winter hours" or "summer hours". The biggest concern the Japanese govt. currently has regarding this topic is the amount of energy that could potentially be saved if DST was adopted.

So...?

[symes]

I sometimes wonder why such research finds the light of day. Perhaps for epidemiologists there is merit - but there dose not seem there is much anyone else can do. All sorts of these worrying little nuggets of nonsense appear. People die. It is one of the most definite outcomes of life. Those deaths can be related to circumstances outside of our control. It just promotes hand wringing.

Re:So...?

[Anonymous Coward]

So how would you feel if your wife/child/parent/friend got run over by a sleep-deprived driver on the morning after DST? Fact is, DST increases human mortality and energy usage. Is it worth the increase of consumer economy it generates?

Re:So...?

[Immerman]

Do we even have any evidence that it actually increases economic activity? I know that was the common sense rationale when it was established - but common sense is often wrong when applied to complicated systems. Is there a clear increase when DST kicks in, and corresponding decrease when it ends? Have we done in-depth statistical cross-comparisons between seasonal economic fluctuations between locales that do and do not practice DST? Has anyone even bothered to look?

Re:So...?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, not overall economic activity, consumer activity. People go shopping more because daylight is longer. That much is proven, and retailers love DST because of it. Not sure about the overall economic effect. Wouldn't be surprised if it was a net zero.

Re:So...?

[Immerman]

Fine, call it consumer activity (being a subset, any change in consumer activity will have a corresponding change in economic activity, unless there's some secondary effect that neutralizes the change).

So - can you cite an actual scientific study that backs up the common-sense claims you just made? Preferably several independent studies?

If the change is real though, how would it be a net zero? Perhaps compared to a world where clocks were offset by 1/2 hour year round, but IIRC DST didn't involve adjusting the winter "official time" at all, only the summer.

Re:So...?

[ericloewe]

In a word? No.

Re:So...?

[Tridus]

I sometimes wonder how idiotic ideas like changing the clocks ever find the light of day. Fortunately, we have researchers to provide factual evidence for what a bloody stupid idea that is.

Not that our so-called "leaders" are bothered by minor details like facts.

Re:So...?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're too lazy to use google: http://phys.org/news/2014-03-daylight-energy.html

Re:So...?

[Immerman]

Yes, hopefully by this point we all know that the touted "energy savings" of DST are complete BS. There've certainly been enough independent studies in the last century all reaching the same conclusion. But what does that have to do with the conversation at hand, which is about (presumably) unrelated consumer behavior?

Re:So...?

[zippthorne]

DST doesn't change the amount of daylight. The earth's orbit and axial tilt change the amount of daylight.

If the problem is that businesses do better when there are more daylight hours after people finish work, that could be solved without having a DST at all - just provide an incentive for employers to change hours or offer flex time to employees.

In fact, I think we would do far more for the economy and the environment by encouraging businesses to stagger hours such that there is no more "rush hour." The time and fuel people waste sitting in traffic could be put to better use doing pretty much anything else.

Re:So...?

[Opportunist]

Are you kidding? This is far from "outside of our control", if there has ever been one cause of death that could so easily be avoided, then this one: STOP FUCKING WITH THE CLOCK!

Re:So...?

[Opportunist]

Why should I give a fuck about whether it's light or dark outside when I browse Amazon?

Re:So...?

[PrimaryConsult]

During EST, my upstate NY city has hardly any sunlight after 4:30 PM. As a result, it seems the local businesses are all on a 8-4:30 work schedule. A few weeks ago I overslept and was amazed at how freely traffic flowed when trying to get to work at 9.

And, we *still* want it to be EDT year round. I don't care if it's completely dark on the drive in to work, but driving home in the dark is depressing (it's dark because "the day is already over" versus "the day hasn't begun yet").

Re:So...?

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, the point is that there are plenty of excuses to keep DST around despite all of the evidence of the harm it produces. I wish DST would die in a fire, but it won't happen until every excuse is discredited, proven wrong, or overshadowed by the negative effects of DST.

Re:So...?

[zippthorne]

Why not just call it what time it really is and have work start at 8 instead?

Re:So...?

[PrimaryConsult]

Did you read my post? Work is starting at 8 and it's *still* too dark at the end of the day during the four months of EST... I've noticed this problem in other time zones as well (JST, AST). I am guessing that the pre-alarm clock "up with the sun" mindset is why the time zones are the way they are, but if you poll people with a simple question "do you prefer sunlight before work or after" the answer is a resounding after.

Re:So...?

[aXis100]

Yeah, I'm still baffled why both commerce and retail insist on having the same start time of 9am. How many people do you know are in the retail shops at that time? Most poeple I know are AT WORK!

Some countries have figured it out though. I was living in Malaysia for a while and they had regular 9-5 for general business, and 10am-10pm for retail. It was great being able to go to the shops after work, and the malls became quite social with lots of restaurants and poeple browsing around - as opposed to the Thursday "late night trading" frenzy in Western Australia.

Re:So...?

[dryeo]

It was a good idea during a war when everyone had to observe black out conditions. Of course that war is long finished.

Re:So...?

[zippthorne]

This is still easily solved without messing with the clocks. You could, for instance, start at 7am, or even 6am!

Personally, I'd prefer that the start times be more spread out, anyway. I think that traffic and traffic frustration are bigger ills than whether it's dark or light when you're sitting in that traffic.

Re:So...?

[PrimaryConsult]

I think you missed what I was getting at... that the time zones are more often than not, "off by one" while in standard time during the winter months. I am agreeing that we should stop messing with the clocks, and just pin them to DST. Since we spend 8 months out of the year in DST and 4 in ST, it is already almost there. The net result could very well be a national shift of time zones "to the left".

What you are suggesting is that during the winter months, people change office hours to start earlier, to counteract the meddling with the clocks. How is that better than my solution of not meddling?

Re:So...?

[zippthorne]

Why pin them to DST? Why not pin them to something with astronomical reality, i.e. solar noon.

Re:So...?

[PrimaryConsult]

Why not? A clock's purpose is for humans. It's relation to the sun is of no importance. The simplest tweak to everyone's routine to improve things is is to pin them to DST, to correct a problem that is only present for four months a year (and caused directly by returning to standard time).

Weird

[kruach aum]

I thought daylight saving time was linked to my clock.

Circadian Rhythm

[X!0mbarg]

If this is what happens once a year, imagine what happens to people who have their schedules changed at random (like a truck driver), or someone on "swing shifts"!

Little wonder there are so many truckers having heart attacks that end their careers (or even their lives)!

And to think I worked for a company that the VP actually said to me (with a witness from their own Drivers' Advisory Board present, no less):

"Circadian rhythm is a luxury we cannot afford in this industry."

I'd name names, but I might want to return to driving one day, and it could get me Blackballed ;)

Re:Circadian Rhythm

[ShanghaiBill]

Little wonder there are so many truckers having heart attacks that end their careers (or even their lives)!

It could also be because they sit on their butts all day and eat lots of junk food.

Re:Circadian Rhythm

[Anonymous Coward]

There nothing like self censorship out of fear. Welcome to the new century :D

Re:Circadian Rhythm

[Antique Geekmeister]

> It could also be because they sit on their butts all day and eat lots of junk food.

Most long-haul and delivery truckers also help load and unload the trucks, and that requires intense activity scattered at add times throughout a day. The older truckers have also learned to protect their bodies and their diets: they use the safety equipment, the gloves and kidney belts, and they eat well. Or they'd have never lasted long enough in the business to be older truckers.

Re:Circadian Rhythm

[Immerman]

>Little wonder there are so many truckers having heart attacks that end their careers (or even their lives)!
I suspect the sedentary lifestyle and diet rich in fat- and cholesterol-rich fast foods is a bigger contributor.

But you have a point about swing shifts, I seem to remember reading about a study recently that suggested that swing shifts did in fact have a number of negative health effects.

Re:Circadian Rhythm

[sjames]

Yes. If we're going to ban DST, there's a lot of other things that will have to go. Like moving work shifts. The courts will have to adjust as well. No more jury duty for night owls unless they open a night court.

Re:Circadian Rhythm

[Anonymous Coward]

I see no black or white, anything that gets me balled can only make me more relaxed.

Re:Circadian Rhythm

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh. Just like you aspie faggots do.

Re:Circadian Rhythm

[thegarbz]

Not sure what it's like where you live, but the trucking industry in Australia is ruled by unachievable deadlines, low salaries, and life critical bonus payments made for early delivery.

The truckers down here died disproportionately from heart attacks not due to their sleep cycle but due to an incredible reliance on stimulating hard drugs, usually speed and ice causing a lack of sleep altogether.

Re:Circadian Rhythm

[liquibyte]

Delivery drivers perhaps. Long haul drivers, never! That's what lumpers are for. Former long haul driver here. The reason that they only eat junk food is because that's all that's offered at the truck stops nowadays. Try driving a vehicle that big and you'll understand why we 'mostly' only stop at truck stops, there isn't much choice..

Re:Circadian Rhythm

[Antique Geekmeister]

> Long haul drivers, never!

That's not the case according to the company president who just retired. He described numerous cases of winding up doing, or helping with, the unloading because the staff when he or his crews arrived weren't ready to handle the delivery. For longer drivers, that's why they have coolers. A bit of fruit and vegetable was apparently helpful for keeping them "regular" when they drove.

Suppose we didn't have daylight saving

[Anonymous Coward]

...would the total number of cases over the year be different in number? All this says is that with daylight savings, there are cases clumped around the change dates.

This might seem cruel if you read it as an analogy - it's just an example of one possible arithmetic. Having big holidays (e.g. Christmas) increases product purchases around those dates. But in turn it also decreases those numbers over the year. If we didn't have such big holidays, those purchases would be distributed more uniformly. And whether that would reduce the number of purchases overall is anybody's guess.

Is there a reason that serious heart cases *should* be distributed uniformly? And if this isn't a very strong expectation, is it appropriate to assume causality? Especially to postulate causality leading from '1 hour less sleep' to 'serious heart cases'?

It would be interesting to see the same analysis for a population that does not have daylight saving. Or even better, for a population in which daylight savings was introduced recently.

Re:Suppose we didn't have daylight saving

[Immerman]

A fair point in terms of DST - though the fact that the increase immediately after DST begins is larger than the decrease after it ends would at least naively suggest that DST may be responsible for a slight net increase in heart attacks.

For Christmas though - considering the social obligation many people feel to give gifts, and the number of "crap" gifts that are given and never get returned (including the huge amount of Christmas-themed stuff that may be kept, but only used for a few weeks a year, and which you would never by for yourself), I suspect that such a consumer-oriented holiday stimulates a net increase in purchases. Ties and underwear notwithstanding it is in essence a period of socially-mandated luxury spending, much of which might not occur otherwise.

Re:Suppose we didn't have daylight saving

[ceoyoyo]

Oddly, your post immediately follows (follows, not a child of) a post where the poster is able to multiple 1.25 x 0.81 and correctly get 1.0.

Re:Suppose we didn't have daylight saving

[Anonymous Coward]

Oddly, your post immediately follows (follows, not a child of) a post where the poster is able to multiple 1.25 x 0.81 and correctly get 1.0.

Correctly: I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:Suppose we didn't have daylight saving

[dryeo]

Is there a reason that serious heart cases *should* be distributed uniformly?

Might spread out the hospital load.

Enough of the stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

AFAIK, the only reason for this stupid clock change thing is because they don't want children waiting for buses in morning darkness.

In other news, from what I remember hearing, youth crimes are largely committed between 3PM and 5PM. They get home from school, parents are still at work, and they get into trouble.

Fix both problems: Stop changing clocks; let kids go to school 1-2 hours later and get home later.

Re:Enough of the stupidity

[ls671]

School bus traffic?

Re:Enough of the stupidity

[Primate Pete]

Since World War II, it has been mostly about saving energy. In the US, FDR made it mandatory under the name "War Time." Early uses go back to World War I, before school buses were in common use. It's not about children or crime.

Re:Enough of the stupidity

[Immerman]

I've heard that story as well, the only problem is it's nonsense. It would imply that we were changing the clocks when it's dark in the morning - i.e. in the winter, while the reality is that DST changes things during the summer, when it gets light early. In fact for the first few weeks of DST that pre-8am bus wait goes from having been in the sun for several weeks to once again standing around in the pre-dawn darkness.

Re:Enough of the stupidity

[Anonymous Coward]

I wrote the root of this thread, and I live in the Philly suburbs, so this is based on my observations here. YMMV.

Yes, bus traffic. It's already a problem. I do a lot of driving during the day and I've noticed afternoon rush hour starts at 2:30- when schools start letting out. Once the buses and 15 MPH school zones start causing the backups, it just continues until 7 PM or so. Summer is so wonderful!! Far far less rush-hour traffic in summer.

Another thing that adds greatly to the traffic is so many parents picking up their kids at schools. Sorry to sound like a gramps, but when I was a kid in the 70s, _rarely_ did anyone get picked up- we all rode the bus. Now buses are less than 1/2 full leaving schools. Big waste. But I digress- I think the problem will be minimal because on their way home the parents will pick up kids. Those parents were going to be on the roads at that time anyway. In fact, maybe more of them will pick up kids so maybe fewer buses will run (buses stop very often and block both directions of traffic) and the sum total traffic will be less. But yes, more bunching at 5 PM.

Remember right now the buses run during the morning rush and I don't see huge problems. Can't figure that one out.

The only other problem is after school sports, and other activities, but I see that as a fairly simple scheduling problem.

We could have more but smaller schools- closer to home and therefore less traffic. More homeschooling and online / self-study. Aren't we supposed to be teaching kids to be self-reliant responsible adults, etc.? Maybe many of society's problems are due to the spoon-feeding, cattle-chute way we're brought up? When things need to be done everyone sits on their thumbs because that's our conditioning. But I digress...

Obviously it's not a simple problem to solve, otherwise the wise people who came before us would have solved it a different way. I'm willing to try my idea. Adjust and adapt as needed.

Re:Enough of the stupidity

[jklovanc]

The kids going to school in the dark issue is the reason that we don't have DST all year around.

youth crimes are largely committed between 3PM and 5PM.

According to this graph the peak is between 3-6PM on weekdays but it is not much different than any other segment between noon and midnight. From the graph approximately 73 youths were accused between noon and midnight. Of that, 21 (29%) occurred between 3 and 6. That is 4% over the expected average of 25%. Sorry but a 4% difference is not largely.

let kids go to school 1-2 hours later and get home later.

The problem with your solution is that parents could no longer take their kids to school in the winter as they need to be at school after the parent needs to be at work. The solution to that would be to shift the work day too but that would be the same as shifting the clock.

Re:Enough of the stupidity

[zippthorne]

The only problem is that there is no evidence that any energy is saved. The only studies I have seen reported have been either inconclusive or show a slight increase in energy usage.

Re:Enough of the stupidity

[guytoronto]

If you are going to title your post "Enough of the stupidity", you may want to educate yourself about DST first.
DST takes an hour of sunlight in the morning and moves it to the evening. Here in Toronto, the longest day of the year (June 21) has the sunrise at 4:30am and sunset at 8pm under STANDARD time. Under DST, that becomes a 5:30am sunrise and 9pm sunset.

This has nothing to do with school kids. This is all about shifting our clocks so that we have more sunlight during our awake hours. When we switch to DST in March, sunrise shifts from 6:40am to 7:40am. Sunset shifts from 6:15pm to 7:15pm. It works out very well. So why don't we stay in DST?

Well, on the shortest day of the year (Dec 21) sunrise is 7:48am and sunset is 4:44pm. DST would give us a 8:48am sunrise. DST during the winter would be really frickin' depressing.

Although, to be fair, Saskatchewan here in Canada is perpetually in DST time. They've aligned their time zone permanently with one zone to the east. Their sunrise on Dec 21 is almost 9am!

DST NVTS

[elecwolf]

It's the 21st century, we do not need to follow a system created for an 18th century agricultural society. For that matter, I'm rather surprised we haven't all switched to GMT since it would just be better be on a nice, stable, global time than to try and figure out what time it is in the next state when it's less than 10m away. And then someone had the bright idea to move our DST so now even other countries that are following it for some reason are now an hour off again for a few weeks. Just nuts...

Daylight saving is obsolete

[Anonymous Coward]

Its so obvious: in an age where we have micro contollers and basic logic/counters etc.
Achieve daylight saving by adjusting the time daily in 2-5 minute increment offsets over a month.

Daylight saving:
Causes fires, car accidents and accidents at work.

It would be cheaper to just have an integrated circuit in the electronics of every clock made. If everyone just hit a little red button on the back of the clock at the right time of year and it adjusted gradually over the course of a month.

Welcome to the most captain obvious solution

Re:Daylight saving is obsolete

[Primate Pete]

Seriously? Replacing every clock in the involved countries is the most obvious solution? It would be technically, economically, and socially easier to just leave things as they are.

Re:Daylight saving is obsolete

[Opportunist]

Actually, it would be easiest if we just get rid of the crap. In pretty much every aspect.

Re:Daylight saving is obsolete

[Primate Pete]

Yup.

sunlight is evil

[confused one]

Proof that sunlight is Evil! Return to your basements and bunkers fellow geeks. Avoid any light not produced by our shining monitors, as it is a lie. Hazard the light from the Sun and you will be burned! What other proof do you need? Only in our computer generated worlds do we find Truth.

Re:sunlight is evil

[antdude]

I would agree, but you're a confused one. :P

Strangely, it all works out

[Overzeetop]

125% x 81% = 100% (to two significant figures, which is as close as we can get from the article data).

OTOH, it would be interesting to see if you could gain a long term benefit by letting people sleep in an extra hour on a regular basis.

Re:Strangely, it all works out

[Anonymous Coward]

125% x 81% = 100% (to two significant figures, which is as close as we can get from the article data).

OTOH, it would be interesting to see if you could gain a long term benefit by letting people sleep in an extra hour on a regular basis.

Could it be that the data is skewed because these two days have 25 hours and 23 hours in them instead of the normal 24 hours?

Re:Strangely, it all works out

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, they say it fell 21%, so that would be 125% * 79% = 98.75%. So it actually reduced the risk slightly overall

Re:Strangely, it all works out

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the deaths were not on Sunday, when most people are off and aren't disturbed by an alarm anyway.

Re:Strangely, it all works out

[nedlohs]

Except it isn't a 25% increase from the base and then a 21% decrease from that higher result. It's a 21% decrease from the base. Where the base is the average Monday rate.

So if heart attacks are evenly distributed across the days of the year (which seems very unlikely but I don't know the stats on it and can't be bothered looking it up) and there are 52 Mondays in a year (well a little more...) then 2% of heart attacks happen on a Monday. Taking the conclusion in the headline at face value then there's a 4% increase due to daylight saving. We have a 0.08% increase in the number heart attacks in a year.

I'm pretty sure there's other slightly more impactful risk factors to tackle first...

Fuck DST in the ass

[Powercntrl]

Why is it that something that actually would save electricity, forcing people to upgrade to more efficient lightbulbs, got shot down, but the government still insists on fucking with our clocks twice a year?

You want more daylight at the "end of the day"? You get up earlier. If businesses want to change their operating hours, (like many do each weekend anyway, for somewhat ambiguous religious reasons) nothing is stopping them.

I'm sure DST does wonders to reduce the energy use of mining cryptocoins, though. Oh, no, wait, it doesn't. Mining rigs suck down juice 24/7 and imaginary currency could care less about an imaginary time change. I think the moral here is that if people have a financial incentive to waste electricity (such as light bulbs with a cheaper initial purchase cost), they will - regardless of what the clock says.

Re: Fuck DST in the ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry, the actual companies involved in light bulb production are already stopping so people will have to switch anyway.

Re:Fuck DST in the ass

[Anonymous Coward]

The proposal to ban incandescent bulbs in the EU was a disaster. Power consumption went UP. The reason is somewhat stupid: There are applications where normal light bulbs cannot be beat, for example for high temperature operating. These are not banned. What happened is that all stores replaced normal bulbs with ruggedized incandescents. Since they have a thicker filament and glass they are less efficient (around 1-2%, depending on the type).

They can also not be banned as they are needed in too many applications.

I believe it.

[taxman_10m]

I feel miserable for at least 2 weeks after daylight savings time. Like someone kicked me in the head each morning. Walk around like a zombie.

Re:I believe it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel miserable for at least 2 weeks after daylight savings time. Like someone kicked me in the head each morning. Walk around like a zombie.

If an hour time change that you and the rest of the planet know is coming weeks in advance fucks you up that bad, then I can imagine you don't go out much, for staying up until 3AM one crazy Friday night would likely put your ass in a coma for 3 months.

It's an hour of sleep for fucks sake. An average day can cost me that much. Get over it and live a little.

Absolute Percentages?

[Great Big Bird]

What is the actual risk of heart attack? 25% sounds like a lot, but if it is a 25% increase on 0.0000001% chance, then it doesn't sound as good for an article.

Re:Absolute Percentages?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet it's the first one--25% of the population dies of a heart attack on the same day each spring, and nobody noticed until now.

Re:Absolute Percentages?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's a difference of 400 people. Over 10 years - you'll kill more people than al-queda on 911.

Simple solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Split the difference and change the clocks one time by 30 minutes and never change them again.

Part of Russia's master plan for Crimea?

[blanchae]

They just adjusted the Crimea clock by 2 hours. Can we expect a flood of heart attacks now?

Going to die anyway

[WaffleMonster]

I'll let TFA speak for itself...

"The overall number of heart attacks for the full week after daylight saving time didn't change, just the number on that first Monday. The number then dropped off the other days of the week."

Its the alarm clock, stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

A "change" to daylight savings is truly artificial. The only way someones body can know that it changed is if they change their behavior based upon the clock change. The only way to do that is to use an alarm clock. So dump the alarm clocks and live longer.

BS More Junk "Science"

[Lawrence_Bird]

So... where is the study showing that people travelling one time zone have a 25% increase in heart attack risk? Hmmmmm?

first thing

[Anonymous Coward]

First thing to go when moshiach comes

Oh really.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you could only explain why you used "x" :D

Re:Oh really.

[zippthorne]

One would assume because slashdot doesn't recognize ·

Michigan

[fustakrakich]

It sits on the "trailing edge" of its time zone. The clocks are out of kilter with the sun, by almost two hours during DST. Time zone borders should be moved to the white areas between the red and green of this graphic and then kill DST. Solar noon should never happen before the clock strikes 12.

Re:Michigan

[David_Hart]

It sits on the "trailing edge" of its time zone. The clocks are out of kilter with the sun, by almost two hours during DST. Time zone borders should be moved to the white areas between the red and green of this graphic and then kill DST. Solar noon should never happen before the clock strikes 12.

Boston is on the leading edge of it's time zone. I always look forward to DST. If we didn't change the time the sun would come up at 4:30 am here and go down at 7:30 pm during the summer. I'm a night owl and the sun coming up that early would kill me plus it wouldn't leave much time for summer evening activities during week nights. Boston really should be on the Atlantic time zone, but that wouldn't go over well with business because of ties to the NY stock markets, etc.

Re:Michigan

[Anonymous Coward]

When I live in southwest Michigan, I used to love watching the sun set on Lake Michigan at some ridiculous time like 9:30 or 10 pm during DST

Re:Michigan

[Anonymous Coward]

Boston? Eastport, Maine is further east than Boston and probably has insane sunrise/sunset times. More so than Bah-ston.

Isn't the conclusion wrong?

[tommeke100]

So they noticed that the monday after the switch, they had 8 more heart-attack patients than on a regular monday.
Don't know if these are averages, but it just means they see 25% more patients.
It doesn't mean that everyone has 25% more chance of having an heart-attack that particular day.

Re:Isn't the conclusion wrong?

[Nehmo]

If we assume the study was representative, then your argument isn't strong. But it wasn't representative, so this is just something to provoke discussion. Nonetheless, daylight-saving time, which is a misnomer anyway, is dumb. If I ever get to be dictator, I'm changing everybody to standard for the whole year.

Re:BS More Junk "Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Harder to collect and verify that data (people traveling will not be as even a distribution across the population as say... everyone who is affected by DST and goes to a hospital)

2. It's more common to have exceptional factors when traveling across timezones (countries, states, etc) due to the nature of events that would necessarily be irregular (not like a daily job that you can adjust for).

Interesting but nowhere near enough data

[jockm]

So we could see if they compared to Arizona — which mostly doesn't follow DST. For for that matter to dairy farmers who also don't follow DST in their sleep schedule. From TFA it seems like the data only comes from the state of Michigan in what I believe is one year only.

This study is interesting but there is no where near enough data to draw any real conclusions... not that that will stop anyone...

Re:Interesting but nowhere near enough data

[Anonymous Coward]

The citation "for four consecutive years" from the summary would seem to contradict your rectally exctracted "what I believe is one year only."

Re:Interesting but nowhere near enough data

[jockm]

Fair enough I missed that, and thank you for pointing that out. However my other points still stand. This is a single dataset and not meaningful enough to draw actionable conclusions form.

Re:Interesting but nowhere near enough data

[thegarbz]

Given how this is a quite commonly cited theory I'm willing to bet there are more studies on heart attacks than just this one in Michigan. Google Scholar brought up heaps of studies:

2011: "Overall, we found an elevated incidence ratio of 1.039 (95% confidence interval, 1.003–1.075) for the first week after the spring clock shift forward"

2008: "The incidence of acute myocardial infarction was significantly increased for the first 3 weekdays after the transition to daylight saving time in the spring. The incidence ratio for the first week after the spring shift, calculated as the incidence for all 7 days divided by the mean of the weekly incidences 2 weeks before and 2 weeks after, was 1.051 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.032 to 1.071). In contrast, after the transition out of daylight saving time in the autumn, only the first weekday was affected significantly (Figure 1B); the incidence ratio for the whole week was 0.985 (95% CI, 0.969 to 1.002)."

Re:Interesting but nowhere near enough data

[jockm]

Great then gather the data from as all the studies you can find, do the math and then publish a meta study. That would be very useful. My point was to all the people here on /. who are making comments based only on this study. The Reuters story was the the study of the week filler piece.

Re:Interesting but nowhere near enough data

[thegarbz]

Right so people should only do meta studies? Then who would do actual studies? We can't all just believe that Big Data will get us everywhere. This is another study. The comments on slashdot are perfectly justified given that this study shows results which are in line from other similar studies performed else where at different times.

Just because we're commenting on one study doesn't suddenly invalidate everything.

Re:BS More Junk "Science"

[jockm]

But you could look at Arizona which mostly doesn't follow DST, or at Dairy Farmers who don't change their sleep schedule because of it, etc

This study only looks at 42,000 admissions in Michigan, and TFA doesn't indicate if that was from one year or multiple years.

I am not saying the study is useless, but it is just one dataset. We need a whole lot more data before we can draw any real conclusions.

Causation or correlation?

[Dcnjoe60]

Is this causation or correlation or just a bad use of statistics?

For instance, the clock changes on Saturday night (Sunday morning to be exact), As such, there is no loss of sleep on Sunday night for the heart attack on Monday. Even more perplexing, is the drop in heart attack doesn't occur until the following Tuesday, even though again the clock change is Saturday night.

This would be easy enough to verify, take any other night, when one traditionally looses sleep, say New Year's Eve. Is there a rise in heart attacks on January 2nd?

Personally, I'd vote for a bad use of statistics.

Be skeptical

[jmichaelg]

Went looking for the original paper to see how many cases were looked at. Dr. Sandhu doesn't show up in a search for UC at Denver so no luck there. A few news article referenced a Conference which points to http://www.medpagetoday.com/Me... .

That page says that the # of extra attacks is 8. Moreover, Dr. Sandhu is quoted as saying that the total number of heart attacks in the week leading up to and following the clock change is unchanged so if there is an effect at all, it's front-loading the week's expected heart attack frequency.

Summertime-whine-itis

[Anonymous Coward]

Most people can change their bedtime easily. Look at people with shift jobs. People who travel across time zones. Anyone with a social life that occasionally makes them hang with friends in the evening.

If you can't adjust your bedtime by one hour, you may have a medical condition. Most likely whine-itis, where you just want some excuse to pretend to have a problem, and summertime-whine-itis is a popular choice for that.

Re:Summertime-whine-itis

[lgw]

If you can't adjust your bedtime by one hour, you may have a medical condition

Indeed, it is so. It's a pretty common one. Most people can adjust by one hour in either direction. Some like me can easily do +2 or -0 a day - my circadian rhythm is simply too long.

People without this problem call us "lazy" or "whiners", because mocking a physical disability is always good for a laugh.

Re:Summertime-whine-itis

[ceoyoyo]

And some of us actually travel more than a few hundred kilometres from our birth places and can make large adjustments without complaining about it every time. My biggest was twelve hours, after which I went surfing.

Re:Summertime-whine-itis

[lgw]

And what a manly man you are. Now brag about how much you bench press. Whatever makes you feel better about yourself.

Re:Summertime-whine-itis

[shutdown -p now]

I lived in a country which was +9 hours of difference relative to where I was born and grew up, then went back. A few years later I traveled to another country which is -12 hours.

It's not that hard to adjust. But it has nothing whatsoever to do with the problem that GP and I both have, which is that our sleep/wake cycle is longer than 24 hours. In fact, it makes it easier to adjust to bigger swings, but a major pain in the ass to adjust to small ones and keep them there.

Daylight Savings Time Needs to End

[BrendaEM]

Set the clocks once in winter for optimal daylight, and be done with it already!

Zone Time is Railroad Time

[westlake]

It's the 21st century, we do not need to follow a system created for an 18th century agricultural society. For that matter, I'm rather surprised we haven't all switched to GMT...

Before the railroad, clocks were set to local solar time, which changes significantly every 25 miles.

The earliest locomotives could easily be pushed to 25mph or better over a decent stretch of track. That made scheduling clumsy and dangerous even after the introduction of the telegraph.

GMT was introduced as a navigational aid for mariners, an easy and reliable way to determine longitude. When the sun says its 5 PM in New York and the moon says its 10PM in London, you have a problem. The difference between night and day,

I'd post something snotty but

[MXB2001]

I'm too tired from lack of sleep.

Easy.

[Kaenneth]

Just set the time to the half-hour between regular and 'daylight savings', you won't be more that 30 minutes off all year round.

Why?

[cascadingstylesheet]

I haven't heard a cogent explanation of Daylight Savings Time, ever.

It's some stupid thing that we do just because we do it.

Re:Why?

[mjwx]

I haven't heard a cogent explanation of Daylight Savings Time, ever.

It's some stupid thing that we do just because we do it.

Well, here in Western Australia the sun is shining at 4:30 in the morning in the summer. This means all the birds, dogs and retarded morning people up and waking the dead at 4-fucking-30. The Sun goes down around 7:30 PM.

We had daylight savings for 3 glorious years until the backwards idiots in this state repealed it. DST shifted the sunrise to 5:30 and sunset to 8:30... this had the added bonus of allowing you to do things that required daylight after work.

So there are two cogent explanations of why DST exists:
1. Sleep in the morning.
2. Can go to the beach after work.
You have been educated.

Re:Why?

[cascadingstylesheet]

Or you could just have a proper time zone (and you are not alone in that problem).

Maybe the Gov't Will Finally Abolish It

[djhaskin987]

Finally! Something concrete to take to congress.

primay cause....

[Anonymous Coward]

Given the love for Coney Islands in Michigan, the increase in attacks may be linked to something similar to: the delay in changing the oil in the deep fry.

sleep...

[l3v1]

I know sleep loss and/or sleeping for unregular length and time can lead to all kinds of problems, but since I can't even remember when I've slept more than 6 hours at a time, and I have to pull all-nighters from time to time, and I'm still alive and kicking, I have to say I believe that eating habits (type and quantity) and regular exercising can help a lot in balancing the scale. Of course, people having circulatory, blood pressure or heart problems might have a different story to tell.

You need the decimal day

[Gonoff]

I don't know if it is a real theory but it is an item in a half written book that I may finish one day.

When humans move into space, they will move away from the need to follow any solar day. They will use a 100,000 second day. That's 27 Hours, 42 minutes and 40 seconds.

It's only a minor plot item so I haven't worked it all out but there are several people here saying that they would settle into a 28 hour rhythm. I think I would too.

no

[Anonymous Coward]

I wake up a little earlier on Saturday, set my clock ahead an hour in the afternoon. So it has no effect on me.

Its no different then having to wake up 1 hour earlier then usual.

actually our biological clocks are dependent on ou

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? Last I checked, if you sleep in or get up early, your body adjusts.

stop heart attacks...

[Anonymous Coward]

just keep moving the clock back every month instead of just in the fall, giving people that 23% reduction in heart attacks every month. don't move clock forward any more. soon we won't have heart attacks any more!

Re:BS More Junk "Science"

[Anonymous Coward]

But you could look at Arizona which mostly doesn't follow DST, or at Dairy Farmers who don't change their sleep schedule because of it, etc

This study only looks at 42,000 admissions in Michigan, and TFA doesn't indicate if that was from one year or multiple years.

I am not saying the study is useless, but it is just one dataset. We need a whole lot more data before we can draw any real conclusions.

Indiana would also be a good state to look into as well, in the past some counties observed DST and some did not, which was the basis for some of the studies that showed DST doesn't really save energy.

Vague recollection of another study like this ...

[Dabido]

I have a vague recollection of Australia doing a similar study that showed a 10% increase in heart attacks when that hour sleep was lost. Seems that this is confirming that study which is one of the things science tries to do, replicate results.

Your "natural clock" = off (due to your meds)

[Anonymous Coward]

Cuckoo-Clock Zontar's "touched in the head": schizophrenic multiple personality disorder http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + manic depression http://slashdot.org/comments.p... now go take those meds, you whacko!

You'd trade it for MORE MEDS (lol)

[Anonymous Coward]

Zontar's "touched in the head": schizophrenic multiple personality disorder http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + manic depression http://slashdot.org/comments.p... now go take those meds, you whacko!

Lower your dose of meds (helps understanding)

[Anonymous Coward]

Zontar's "touched in the head": schizophrenic multiple personality disorder http://slashdot.org/comments.p... + manic depression http://slashdot.org/comments.p... now go take those meds, you whacko!