Dr. Daniel Barone of the Weill-Cornell Center for Sleep Medicine at New York-Presbyterian, says “If you look at the motor vehicle accidents that happen over the course of the year, there’s a tremendous spike on the Monday after Daylight Saving Time. Although people joke about how little sleep they got the night of the time change, the effects are serious and well-documented. With Americans already sleep deprived, that extra hour can push them over the top.
Anyone who is in the habit of not getting enough sleep can suffer from irritability, mood changes, memory problems and difficulty completing tasks that require thinking. Barone says because we are already not getting enough sleep, taking another hour away from that when springing forward in March those problems increase, which translates to more accidents on the road.
On Monday, millions of sleep-deprived drivers on the roads will be suffering from difficulty thinking and slowed reaction times. “That translates into higher [rates of] accidents on the road,” says Barone.
Barone says that we can’t blame it all on Daylight Saving Time, since as much as a third of Americans already get too few hours of sleep every night. A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that only 65.2 percent of Americans get 7 hours of sleep, which is considered a healthy amount.
Accidents are not the only thing to watch out for. Weight gain can be a problem too, as poor dietary decisions also go along with being sleep deprived.
So as tired Americans head out on Monday for their first day of work after changing their clocks, latte and jelly donut in hand, be extra careful. And don’t blame it all on the Daylight Saving Time.