Australia and the U.S. suggested Daylight Saving Time (DST) to the summer months in order to reduce home and commercial energy costs across the community. In other words, the daylight saving time can help saving the use of electrical energy.
Australia was first set the DST in 1917 on the purpose of saving fuel during the war. It was ended in the same year and became used in 1940s. Now the DST came to boom again due to the global warming problem and the lacking of natural energy. Australia and USA, thus, released researches on the benefits of DST on saving energy. Besides, the American Journal of Public Health in 1995 indicates that accidents are decreased during the rush hour in the day time in DST period. So now DST is enormously promoted and used.
The daylight saving time is putting clocks forward to get longer daylight and make community to use the lighting less. So if the schedule of sports time is at 5 pm, then the daylight will be enough for exercising as there is sufficient daylight for the activity. This can show that DST can stimulate people to be outside more and use electricity inside their house less.
The energy saving came from human behaviour form when daylight end. The light begins at around 5 or 6 am. However, due to DST, people needs to get up to do their day time activity earlier than that, or may be around 4 am. And the daytime activity at the end of the day will be expanded.
However, DST can cause sleepless or sleeping disorder as well. It is found out that around 70 million US citizens have encountered sleeping problem which have affect on health and lifestyle enormously. Dr. Aparajitha Verma, a neurologist with the Sleep Disorders Center at the Methodist Neurological Institute (NI) claims that one of the DST can affect to people’s sleep habit.
To get insufficient sleep or get the changed habit scheme can be the first step of sleeping disorder which lead people to have some diseases or fall in illness easily. According to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, people who sleep for seven or more hours but still feel tired when they wake up; those who cannot fall to sleep in 30 minutes as they lie down; and those who have excessive sleep at day time have a high risk to have a sleeping disorder.
To prevent sleeping problem during DST, Dr. Verma suggests that people need to have sufficient rest during the changing time. First step of the handling the problem is waking up earlier and take a rest earlier too. The internal organs are the form of regular activity associated with the daily scheme. According to Dr. Verma, people who have sleeping problem have the fixed scheme in their internal body.
However, those who take sufficient rest and can adjust to the new schedule may have less problem or may not encounter the problem. So people need to get an enough sleep at night first.
To get a good night sleep, people need to prepare themselves well; such as sleeping in a tranquil and dark bedroom with a comfortable temperature. For those who can hardly sleep may do exercise at nearly the end of the day but not one or two hours just before going to bed. There is also a recommendation on the issue that avoid watching or reading on the bed as it can cause sleeplessness.