5 Things to Know About Losing an Hour of Sleep

As you are no doubt well aware by this point in the afternoon, Daylight Saving Time has brought its destruction to our sleeping patterns over the weekend, rending them unrecognizable. While the idea of jumping forward in time is neat to us sci-fi geeks that love time travel, it's no fun to wake up at a time that feels like an hour earlier to our bodies. I've been in Austin all weekend for South By Southwest Interactive, and I've seen some sleepy and tired people wandering the halls of the Convention Center. Note to SXSW planners: parties plus DST do not equal happy convention goers.

However, even if you're bitter about never getting that sixty minutes of sleep back from Sunday morning, there are some actual benefits to DST that go beyond putting that daylight away to use for later. Here are 5 things to know about losing an hour of sleep...

Fewer auto accidents.

Apparently, people drive a little bit better when they can see the road. Who knew? For the period of time that DST is in effect (March to November), there is an overall net drop of 1 percent in auto accidents. Conversely, the week after we revert back to standard time sees a 186 percent rise in pedestrians getting hit by cars while people adjust to the early evening. Basically, don't walk at dusk during the month of November.

Less violent crime

If Batman taught us anything, it's that criminals like to do stuff at night, when masked vigilantes with ninja school degrees can hunt them for a hobby. According to a recent study done by a U.S. Law Enforcement Assistance Administration found that there was a 10 to 13 percent fall in violent crime.

There is no "s".

Were we to conduct a poll about the proper written form of Daylight Saving Time, I'm sure that there are many of you who would have spelled it as Daylight Savings Time. This is a common misconception. Allow me to pull out my grammar geek. Ahem... Basically, the word "Saving" in the phrase is used as a modifier for the word "time". Think of it as the same way you would use the word "defying" in the phrase "death-defying leap". Or "removing" in hunger-removing cheeseburgers.

DST is part of the energy conversation.

Up until 2005, only 16 percent of Indiana counties participated in DST, leaving them in the dark (pun intended) during March to November. Interestingly enough, researchers found that when the rest of the counties were made to join DST, that carbon emissions increased, as well as energy usage, costing the state up to 7 million dollars extra in energy. This is presumably the result of people cooling their homes for an extra hour in the evening during the daylight. However, it should be noted that there are lots of conflicting studies on this subject, with no direct conclusions reached.

Benjamin Franklin didn't create DST.

There is an oft-quoted idea around that Mr. Franklin first created the idea for DST, when really, he wrote a satirical series of letters to Parisians about conserving candle wax and rising earlier to get more work done. Sure, there were hints of what we do with DST in that, but it was first pushed in its modern form by entomologist George Vernon Hudson of New Zealand in the late 19th century. Hudson proposed a 2 hour daylight savings adjustment that would allow him to play golf later as well as collect insects.

Who knew there was so much to learn about Daylight Saving Time? Now you'll have a few interesting anecdotes at your next party, or around the water cooler when your co-workers are talking about Lost and you want to change the subject. What do you guys think about DST? Tell us in the comments!

Source- Daylight Saving Time and Wikipedia. Image via Newsline.

Comments

[lilybl1]

Not a fan of DST, but here are a couple of ways to avoiding DST energy lag: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-pennington-md/5-tips-for-avoiding-dayli_b_500180.html

[Steph]

Love the post, Eddy. It seems like invariably I am leaving a hotel the morning that this kicks in. I will have to start planning vacations around DST.