The first Monday after the start of Daylight Saving Time makes the beginning of the traditional work week even worse than usual for some.
According to experts, losing just a single hour of sleep is enough to tamper with our internal clocks.
Colleen Carney, a Ryerson University professor and head of a Toronto-based sleep lab, says an hour is enough to feel the effects.
“Think of it this way, what if you ate at 6 p.m. most nights but then you crossed over into a different time zone at 6 p.m. and had to wait an extra hour to eat when you are already hungry? You would feel the effect of just this one hour. We have clocks all over our body, including our stomach and we have rhythmicity to things like eating, alertness and sleeping. The spring is particularly tough because we are a sleep-deprived nation and losing an hour of sleep will compound an already difficult situation for some.”
READ MORE: Daylight Saving Time 2014: How the time change affects your internal clock
The idea of changing the clocks in the spring to get an extra hour of daylight at the end of the day, first came up in the late 18th century, but it wasn’t until 1916 when it was first adopted by Germany.
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They did it to conserve energy.
Britain quickly followed suit and a few Canadian cities also jumped on board.
In 1966, clocks across most of North America began changing in unison on the last Sunday of April and October.
In 2007, the start of DST shifted to start the second Sunday of March and ending the first Sunday in November.
Saskatchewan is the only province in the country that doesn’t change its clocks with the exception of a few border towns.
-with files from Carmen Chai
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