Everybody has those mandatory life events that they hate. Those days that absolutely suck, but that you can't avoid no matter how much you complain. Maybe for you it's going to the dentist, or visiting your weird aunt after Christmas. It sucks, it's unpleasant, but it always happens. For me, it's daylight savings time -- more specifically, the whole "spring forward" business. I love sleep. And I get really grumpy when someone tries to take it away from me. Who decided that it would be a good idea to start the week with a sleep deficit? Why make Monday any worse than it already is? But as it turns out, my complaining all of these years is justified, because daylight savings is actually bad for you.
But we only lose an hour, you might say. An hour isn't that big of a deal. Except that it is. Since the majority of Americans are sleep-deprived already (which any college student could have told you), the loss of an extra hour can affect you more than you’d think. Studies show that in the days after we spring forward, the number of strokes increases by 8 percent and the number of heart attacks increases by 10 percent. The loss of that precious hour has also been linked to more car accidents, workplace injuries, and poor decision making. People that are sleep deprived are also less productive and spend more time surfing the internet than doing their work.
So not only is losing that hour bad for your health, but it’s dangerous for the health of everyone around you as well. Basically, what I’m getting out of this is that we should stay in bed all day to avoid a major catastrophe. Possibly for a few days to be safe. Here are some ways to protect yourself against the dangerous phenomenon we call Daylight Savings Time:
1. Skip your morning class to sleep an extra hour.
2. Skip the class after that, just to be safe.
3. Take a nap in the afternoon.
4. Take an all day nap.
5. Stay in bed all day, just to be extra safe.
6. Spend the whole weekend sleeping so you can stock up for the loss.
If you actually have to get out of bed and do real life activities, here are some ways to offset the time change:
1. Eat a good breakfast. Having a full meal in the morning will help your body regain some of the energy that you lost with the lack of sleep.
2, Open your blinds in the morning. Even though your body clock might be a little off, the sunshine will tell your brain that it's morning and help you adjust.
3. Go to bed earlier. If you can go to bed an hour earlier than usual, then you won't lose any sleep!
Feel free to use this article as a doctor's note to get out of whatever real life responsibilities you may be trying to avoid.