Let's take an unofficial poll. Hands up a week after the start of daylight savings time (DST) how many workers are still feeling tired and sleep deprived?
According to a number of studies, in the days and weeks following the switch to DST there is a noticeable increase in everything from accidents to health complaints.
A 2012 study by the University of Alabama in Birmingham, reported in Science Daily, found that springing forward by an hour was associated with a 10 per cent increase in the risk of heart attack over the following 48 hours, but it did not pinpoint the reason. The study found a corresponding 10 per cent decrease in heart attack risk over the 48 hours after people "fall back" and gain an extra sleeping hour in the fall.
In a study overseen by Stanely Coren, a psychology professor at the University of British Columbia, it was found that there was a five to seven per cent increase in accident fatalities during the three days following the jump to DST.
And this is just after the loss of one hour of sleep. Imagine the issues, health and otherwise, that Coren says are a direct result of our “chronically sleep-deprived society.”
Every day, workers across the province go to work and function on what many sleep experts consider to be less than the optimal number of hours a person needs to be fully rested.
For instance, the National Sleep Foundation out of Washinton D.C., says the average adult between the ages of 18 and 64 needs anywhere from seven to nine hours of sleep to be adequately rested. Dr. Atul Khullar, medical director of the Northern Alberta Sleep Clinic in Edmonton agrees saying that the average adult needs between seven-and-a-half to eight-and-a-half hours of sleep per night
Unfortunately, many people in today’s world are not getting anywhere close to that amount of sleep.
True, often it is because of people’s choices. Do you stay up to watch a T.V. program or go to bed and get enough sleep? Often the answer is television or one of the countless other distractions that sneak into our busy lives.
For many people it is not a choice. Under Alberta labour law, for most professions, workers must be given eight hours off between work periods. That number is woefully inadequate.
Even if a person were to go to sleep as soon as they reached home, when the commute time to and from work is factored in, the amount of hours left to actually sleep are far less than those recommended by most health experts.
The Prentice government has said it will be looking into modernizing the province’s labour laws. When it does, hopefully they will look into changing the minimum hours between work periods. Every worker deserves the chance to be fully rested and eight hours is not enough to allow that to happen.
