Daylight Saving Time brings fatigue, maybe heart attacks

The annual tradition of losingan hour's sleep in the spring firstappeared during the First World War as amoney-saving measure, but these days thetime-shift seems to cost us in health.

A2008 Swedish studyfound a higher incidence of heart attacks in the first three workdays after the clocks 'spring forward.'

Researchers chalked it up to a lack of sleep,and did find a similar decrease in the number of heart attacks when clocks 'fall back'later in the year.

There's also atheory about drivers and pedestrians who have lost an hour of sleep creating a potentially-dangerous combination of sleepy people behind the wheel and those on foot being not as sharpas they might normally be.

However, Dr. John Vavrik, a psychologist with the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia,says thatdaylight saving time doesn't appear to be as big a factor incrashes as it used to be.

"The good news is that we're seeing less and less of an impact of the DST change. Maybe people are getting the message, or maybe we're just sleep-deprived all the time and so the DST doesn't seem to be making a huge difference anymore."

The time changecan alsocreate confusion between provinces that do adopt the convention, and those that don't. People in Saskatchewan stay on standard time year-round.

Some say the best advice for reducing time-shift fatigue overnight isto exercise, lay off the caffeine before bed, go to bed at a regular time and put down the smartphone.

Another good piece of advice?Set the clocks ahead on Saturday night.