Surprising Effects of the End of Daylight Savings Time

As daylight savings time comes to an end for the year, people enjoy the extra hour of sleep that comes with the change. However, according to a Live Science news article, the change in quantity of sleep is not the only impact that the practice of changing the time has. It turns out that the beginning and ending of daylight savings time has some interesting effects on the human body. Some of these have a direct relationship to the body’s Circadian rhythms which control the release of hormones that affect moods, need for sleep, and hunger. It doesn’t take a lot of change in circadian rhythms before the body shows the strain. Although all researchers do not share the belief that an increase of car accidents is the result of time changes, the journal of Environmental Public Health reported study results in the 2010 issue that looked at the car accidents in Finland, both one week prior, and one week following the changes in time due to daylight savings time during a 25 year period. Another study reported in the Journal of Safety Research that there was a decrease in accidents at this time due to an increase in visibility during drivers’ morning commutes. Some other changes were in the increase of workplace injuries which took place when daylight savings time started in the spring only, suggesting that this might be the result of insufficient sleep. The same was true for the increase in heart attacks. An increase in body pains, particularly cluster headaches which affect one side of the head, was also seen to increase during transitions because of the change in circadian rhythms. The lack of sleep is also thought to cause a decrease in motivation that leads to an increase in employees spending their time surfing the web. This affect is not one that is directly related to health, but it can be one that is a big expense for businesses.