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Just sleep in: Swedish researchers find Daylight saving time, erratic sleep schedules could affect your health

Happy November.


As I tweeted this week, daylight saving time ends this weekend in much of North America.  And leave it to Dr. Nancy Snyderman to tell us that the time changes brought on by daylight saving time may not be good for your health. 


For devs staying up late to code, consider that you should likely sleep in if you stay up late for a night of coding.  😉


Dr. Nancy referred in her spot on the Today show to a study published on Wednesday suggests that the risk of heart attack my be linked to disturbances in sleep patterns and the time changes that come with daylight saving time.  Salynn Boyles of WebMD Health News reports in an article that daylight saving time may affect your heart, according to the research on heart attack sufferers in Sweden. 


j0438743[1] The research found that the risk of a heart attack rises in the first few days after the “Spring Forward” associated with daylight saving time, likely due to a loss of sleep.  And inversely, the risk goes down in the fall after the end of DST and people select to get an extra hour of sleep on Sunday morning.


As noted in the article, co-author of the study Dr. Rickard Ljung said that the report results “suggest that even small disturbances in sleep patterns may affect the heart.”



“We know that Monday is the most dangerous day for heart attacks,” he tells WebMD. “It has been thought that this is due to the stress associated with returning to work after the weekend, but our study suggests that disturbed sleep rhythms may be involved, and that the extra hour of sleep we get in the fall [after daylight saving time ends] may be protective.”


So next spring, when you have to set your clocks forward, choose to sleep in and then delay your start on Monday as well.  As I recall from my past international travels, it takes a day for every time zone you cross for your body to adjust to the local time. 


Whatever you do, remember that “time is a precious thing. Never waste it.“


I wonder if similarly, heart attack rates remain the same in the areas not affected by these DST changes, places such as Arizona and Hawaii, or Saskatchewan and parts of northern British Columbia.  Or perhaps if they’re following the gyrations of the stock market or doing business with folks in affected time zones, they have to get up an hour earlier and face the same risk.


As always, to ensure that your computers are up to date, visit http://www.microsoft.com/time for more details.


Tags: Microsoft, health, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, 4,880,000 (up from 4.3M a month ago); 1,940,000 (up from 900K a year ago, down 200K since last month)


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Attention, most of North America: make sure you Fall Back this weekend as daylight saving time comes to an end

Clip art from Office OnlineAs I tweeted tonight on Twitter and noted earlier this week, daylight saving time ends this weekend in much of North America. 

As we’ve noted online, in the United States the Energy Policy Act of 2005 introduced changes to the start and end dates of DST, which began in 2007.  (Another benefit of the current administration.)  Now, DST in North America is observed across most of the United States as well as Canada from the second Sunday in March through to the first Sunday in November.

In 2008, DST ends later than in years prior to 2007, at 2:00AM local time on Sunday, November 2. This results in a new DST period that is approximately three to four weeks longer than in previous years.  It also means that you’ll get an extra hour of daylight to trick or treat, or for my friends in Canada, Halloween Apples.

For the most part, that means many of you in the States and Canada will get an extra hour of sleep.  Or an extra hour to club and dance, late night sushi at Hidekazu Tojo’s, watch the last weekend of political skits on SNL live, play Halo 3 on Xbox Live or, like many of us old, married guys on Facebook, just sleep. 

Whatever you do, remember that "time is a precious thing. Never waste it."

That is, unless you live in Arizona and Hawaii, or Saskatchewan and parts of northern British Columbia.  A few US territories don’t observe DST either, including American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the delightful US Virgin Islands: these areas stay on standard time throughout the year.

Visit http://www.microsoft.com/time for more details.

If you have a PC, ensure that you have applied the latest updates (more info at the link above).  For Microsoft Smartphone or Pocket PC owners running Windows Mobile 5.0 or earlier versions, you should have already received the required update from your carrier or installed them earlier this Spring from our Windows Mobile site at http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/daylightsaving/default.mspx.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

Tags: Microsoft, Daylight Saving Time, Daylight Savings Time, RSS, DST, 4,880,000 (up from 4.3M a month ago); 1,940,000 (up from 900K a year ago, down 200K since last month)

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Opinion: Windows 7 “could make using a PC meaningfully more pleasant”

As noted today on Twitter, a quick post before I head off to my next meeting. 

An interesting post this week forwarded to me from technologizer.com on Windows7, from Harry McCracken, providing “a hands-on look at an upgrade that could turn out to be all the things that Vista never was”…

“… the Windows 7 I’ve been exposed to over the past 48 hours is surprisingly crisp and coherent:

  • It aims for compatibility. As in, stuff that works with Vista will work with Windows 7, no updates or fixes required.
  • It tries to stay out of your way. [it] is full of features that let you tell the OS not to bother you with notifications and warnings.
  • It wants to make it easier to manage stuff–applications, documents, and more. … Windows 7 looks like it’ll do a nice job of letting you juggle apps and data more efficiently.
  • It’s connected. As in, it has a ton of networking-related features–it’s the first version of Windows that seems designed with the assumption that it’s for PCs that live on a network.
  • It’s surprisingly original. It ain’t just Steve Jobs that has contended that Windows Vista was a warmed-over knockoff of OS X 10.4 Tiger. Windows 7, however, is its own OS–you may end up loving it or hating it, but its new features have little in common with OS X 10.5 Leopard.

“Will the legions of Windows XP users who continue to spurn Vista find Windows 7 to be the upgrade they were waiting for? The version I’ve been using is too incomplete to let me come to any definitive conclusion. But if the new OS lives up to its considerable promise, it could be a meaningful step towards restoring Windows’ reputation. It’s not earthshaking and includes no landmark features–but it looks like it could make using a PC meaningfully more pleasant.”

Also of interest: Highlights from the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference 2008 are available here: http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/events/pdc/default.mspx

Tags: Microsoft, blogs, Windows 7, Windows Vista, PDC 2008.

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It’s two… no, three blogs in one: the new Windows Blog

You can now knock a couple of blogs off your reading list.

No, they weren’t tossed – nor did the blogger go on permanent holiday as some are wont to do – but a couple of our Windows blogs were merged into the new Windows Team blog, with (as Brandon says)…

"… sporting an all-new look and feel reflecting Windows in a broader sense instead of a single Windows release. We figured it was time to give our blog a good facelift (it’s looked the same since we originally launched in October of 2006) – especially as we start talking about Windows 7, Windows Live, and many other interesting Windows topics. Our old design focused strictly on Windows Vista. Our new design is no longer tied to a specific Windows release allowing us to talk about a wider range of topics."

The Windows Team BlogWe’ve had two blogs hosted together on the same site, the Windows Vista Team Blog and Windows Experience Blog.  Now it’s all just one big happy blog family on The Windows Blog.  

You’ll find the above two blogs as well as a new third as of today: the Windows 7 Team Blog. You can sign up for RSS feeds for the individual blogs or just get the main The Windows Blog RSS feed, all from the following links.

· Windows Vista Team Blog | RSS Feed

· Windows 7 Team Blog | RSS Feed

· Windows Experience Blog | RSS Feed

· Front Page | Main RSS Feed

And a quick quote from Margaret Getchell: Be everywhere, do everything, and never fail to astonish the customer.

Tags: Microsoft, blogs, Windows 7, Windows Vista, PDC 2008.

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Video: CNET’s Ina Fried and Kara Tsuboi on the epicurean appeal of Microsoft Windows 7

In this video from CNET’s Ina Fried and Kara Tsuboi, you’ll learn “why consumers can expect more “dessert” and fewer “vegetables” from the new operating system, and talks about the reasoning behind the number 7 in the name.”

Dessert? Vegetables? 

I can always count on CNET to explain things so simply that even my kids can understand it. ; )

BTW, the boys use Windows Vista SP1 at home.

Here’s the link to CNET’s PDC 2008 coverage:

Tags: Microsoft, performance, Windows 7, Windows Vista, PDC 2008.

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