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With the clocks set to back an hour this weekend, an expert says that our twice-a-year time change is just a bad idea.
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Michael Antle, a University of Calgary psychology professor, noted the springing forward and falling back of clocks began in the early 1900s and was an on-and-off thing in Canada before it became permanent in 1972.
“We know there are acute harms that go along with the spring forward and fall back,” added Antle, an expert on the brain’s circadian clock, which regulates sleep-wake rhythms. “So, the first studies on that were actually from Canada, from British Columbia, in the spring, when we talk about losing an hour of sleep, that we saw there was an increase rate of car accidents relative to the comparative weeks before and after.
“And then, the fall there was a trend in a decline towards car accident rates, relative to the weeks before and after. There’s (also) a slight increase in heart attacks, strokes, on-the-job accidents around the spring forward thing when we lose that hour.”
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He said that the idea of changing the clocks goes back to the days when Canadians used incandescent light bulbs which required quite a bit of energy to work.
“(It) probably doesn’t save as much energy as we think and especially nowadays with energy efficient lightbulbs,” said Antle.
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The Ontario government in 2020 passed legislation setting the stage for a permanent change to daylight savings time. However, the change will only be triggered if Quebec and New York State follow suit.
Antle said in doing away with the time changes, he would want to make standard time — after the clocks go back an hour in the fall — permanent, calling it “the more natural time for our bodies.
“That will lead to optimal health, lower accidents, more productivity on the job, better learning in the schools,” he said.
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