This is not new: every year, we move the time forward in March in order to gain more sunshine during the summer season, but now thousands of Canadians have united to ask the government to abolish the ‘summer time.
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There were nearly 75,000 on Saturday to have signed a petition launched on the change.org website .
“Changing the time twice a year is dangerous for your health. Many studies show that changing the clock and staying on Daylight Saving Time negatively impacts our circadian rhythm, causes an increase in strokes and heart attacks, impacts people with depression and seasonal affective disorder and causes more car accidents,” wrote petition creator Irene Shone.
According to her, Ottawa should adopt standard time permanently in order to “support the health and safety of Canadians and [de] set an example for the rest of the world.
“Moving the clock forward an hour is not the norm, it is something that people have to get used to. This period of adaptation resembles a sort of jet lag,” she added in an interview with CTV News.
Irene Shone is definitely not the only one to think this way. This is particularly the case of the Canadian Sleep Society, which believes that the time change not only causes sleep deprivation, but also social jet lag caused by late darkness.
“Canadian children, students and workers have to wake up in the dark and go to school or work without enough exposure to daylight. This calls into question the key role of morning light for circadian alignment and sleep deficits,” the organization underlined, according to what the English-speaking media reported.