Get ready to spring forward: Daylight Saving Time starts Sunday morning

Here we go again. It's time to suffer through weeks of adjusting our circadian rhythms just for an 'extra' hour of daylight for the next nine months.

Daylight Saving Time for 2014 starts at 2 a.m. local time, on Sunday, March 9. At that time, clocks across the country (except in Saskatchewan and a few other exceptions) are set forward by one hour. However, when you really look at the world we live in right now, and the effects that DST has — on our time, our health and our energy consumption — is it really worth it for us to keep putting ourselves through this?

When it comes to our time, we've started to leave the typical 9-5 work day behind, especially with the internet and how interconnected the world has become over the years. People are working longer hours than ever, and even where the standard work-day is still in effect, it's being transformed as workers come in earlier or work extended shifts to take extra time off. So, the idea that we're 'losing' an hour of sunlight before we get up for the day loses its validity.

The health effects of DST are apparently disastrous for some people. Studies have linked it to a greater chance of heart attack and a higher suicide rate. Also, western societies tend to be living on the razor's edge when it comes to sleep deprivation. We pack our days so full of work and activities that we already run at a sleep deficit, and DST makes it even worse. Studies have shown that this leads to more accidents — automobile or otherwise — due to sleepiness in the days right after the switch. However, sleep expert Stanley Coren recently told UBC News that, overall, DST ends up saving more lives, since "data on traffic accidents show that accidents occur much more often during the dark or lower illumination than during daylight hours."

That may be, but a recent study by the Canadian Institute for Health Information found that it was consistently the time between 4 p.m. and midnight that had the most traffic accidents, with the time between midnight and 8 a.m. having the lowest number of hospital admissions due to accidents. It would be difficult to show a direct link to Daylight Saving Time in all this, but DST does mean more daylight during during the evening for eight months out of the year now, and with more daylight more people may stay out on the roads for longer in the day.

The original purpose of Daylight Saving Time was to conserve energy. Today, the US Department of Energy touts a 2009 report that says the United States actually does save energy from DST — about half a percent per day for the duration of the time change. That equates to a 0.03 per cent savings over the year. They're quick to point out that's the equivalent of the energy consumed by 122,000 households over an entire year, but when it comes down to it, when you compare daily numbers, Earth Hour probably saves more energy.

However, when the Canadian government looked at the U.S.'s proposal to extend DST from March to November, they weren't very optimistic about its effects. In fact, a report to parliament in 2005 brought up serious doubts about the Department of Energy's original 1979 report on the energy savings from Daylight Saving Time, and expressed surprise at the U.S. Congress's decision to implement the extension.

Part of the problem is that the 'shifted' hour gets taken from the coolest part of the summer day and gets added to the hottest time of day. That increases the load on the electrical grid from air conditioners that would likely lie dormant if the sun rose an hour earlier.

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So, what should we do about all this? Should we institute permanent DST, like some places have done? I've made that argument myself, but most often I've heard the objection that it would force kids to walk to school in the dark during the shortest winter days. Fair enough. We're already seeing that now, right after Daylight Saving Time starts in March and just before it ends in November.

Maybe we need to take a scientific approach to this, though. We have an idea ... a hypothesis ... that Daylight Saving Time has an overall beneficial effect for us. There's a lot of conflicting info about that, so, let's put it to the test. Comparing regions of the world that use it and don't use it, even if they're neighbors, is too uncertain, because weather, number of daylight hours, power usage and even societal norms can differ enough to make comparisons meaningless. The best way to do this is to end Daylight Saving Time and study the effects — on our health, on accidents, and on our energy consumption.

We have 40 years of data so far to show us what being on DST is like. I suggest dropping it for a period of 10 years (as a start), and then examine the differences, but we'll probably need a full 40 year period for a truly effective comparison.

Who's with me?

(Photo courtesy: Getty Images)

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