Daylight Saving Time prevents heart attacks?

Glamour Magazine

Anyone who knows me well knows that one of my personal pet peeves is Daylight Saving Time (Rant Warning: I hate it! I hate that I have no choice in the matter! I hate that time is arbitrary! I hate that you're borrowing an hour in the fall that must be paid back in the spring! I hate that I have what is essentially a week of unnecessary jet lag twice a year! Hate! Ire! Contempt! Gah!). But one interesting component is that scientists have noted a reduction in heart attacks on the Monday following the switch in the fall. They theorize that fewer people are having MIs because they use their extra hour to get some extra shut eye.

Here are 5 ways to get better sleep tonight!

Um, holy crap?!

Seriously, that's an impressive statistic on the power of sleep, and I'm kind of amazed that it's buried in a boring news item about Daylight Saving Time. An hour of extra sleep reduces heart attacks. Conversely:

...moving clocks forward in the spring appeared to have the opposite effect. There were more heart attacks during the week after the start of daylight saving time, particularly on the first three days of the week. "Sleep -- through a variety of mechanisms -- affects our cardiovascular health," said Dr. Lori Mosca, director of preventive cardiology at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, who was not involved in the research. The findings show that "sleep not only impacts how we feel, but it may also affect whether we develop heart disease or not." (Source)

Wow! Kind of makes you afraid of your sleep deficit now, doesn't it? I think I'm going to go to bed early tonight. How about you?

Related: Did you know that a little extra sleep has been shown to reduce breast cancer?

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