What is Daylight Saving time a.k.a DST?

As subject started, the DST a.k.a. Daylight Saving time started effective from today morning(11th March 2012) along with the free gift of Fatigue due to the time shift.

What is Daylight Saving time? For the uninitiated(like me!!), it is the practice of advancing clocks so that evenings have more daylight and mornings have less. Typically clocks are adjusted forward one hour near the start of spring and are adjusted backward in autumn. The country where I am living has this darn practice and in turn lost an hour, literally.

Why is this practice of Daylight Saving time? Different reasoning at different part of the country. Some reasoning for the Daylight Saving time goes with saying to help the farmers with the the elongated day light, they could reap lot of benefits during the harvest season, though I am NOT sure if it is a myth. Some goes with the reasoning of DST to save the electricity and the usage of incandescent light, due to longer availability of the Sun time, during these elongated summers, which makes more sense. Though with these modern time lighting and cooling patterns, I am NOT sure if this is a right practice still.

What are the benefits and challenges of Daylight Saving time? Certainly it goes without saying that sports, retailing and other business that could exploit longer business hours could enjoy these elongated hours. However, this affects the sudden body clock shift which means impacting the sleep patterns, travels, time keeping and medical services and of course billing at the immediate day of clock shifts. I am impacted by one of the category - sleep patterns.

How it impacts the sleep pattern and who gets affected? 

• The body clock which is otherwise called "Circadian clock" prefer the elongated sleep in the morning hours instead of evening hours, as per the research goes. 
• Also, Genetic traits also determine your chronotype -- whether you are a night owl (night person who gets more activated energy at nights) or a morning lark(typical early raiser who finds more active time in the morning).
• Now with the daylight saving time, the night Owls (like me!!) tend to have more difficulty with the daylight-saving shift, as per the research states.

Sleep experts suggests the following to overcome the fatigue involved with the  daylight saving time or DST:

• Have more caffeine in the morning and avoid in afternoon and evening.

• Expose yourself to daylight soon after waking. Doing so helps adjust the circadian rhythm.
• Avoid bright light in the evening. Computer screens mimic daylight and throw your circadian rhythm off. 

• Practice good sleep habits, with a comfy bed, a quiet room and white noise to drown out sounds if necessary. 

• Be especially careful while driving or engaging in other activities requiring full alertness. 

BTW, the time reminds me of our recent "kahaani"on the "time" of five game changers in the states of India. Out of one was this "Akilesh Yadav", who would have got his crown set as chief minister. Kudos to him and the word of mouth tell-gooders he has!!

So, with the above advice, I am trying to get some sleep to over come the impact on the circadian clock. ba..bye!!