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The Risky Side of Springing Forward

A local sleep expert examines the darkest day of daylight savings

0315daylightssavings

This article originally appeared in the March 2015 issue of Seattle magazine.

Prepare for a bit of time travel this month: Sunday, March 8, was the day we sprang forward one hour in the name of longer, lighter evenings. But it’s not all kayaking after work and eating picnic dinners. Assistant professor Christopher Barnes of the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business has been studying the dark side of daylight savings in terms of behavior changes witnessed on the Monday after the time change—sometimes known as Sleepy Monday, or more ominously, Risky Monday.

The 40 minutes of sleep most Americans lose as that Sunday turns to Monday turns out to have a significant impact. Barnes has found “a spike of 5.6 percent in work injuries, 2 percent in cyberloafing and a drop of about 4 percent in moral awareness.” That last stat doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to start shoplifting on Risky Monday, but a 2014 study Barnes cowrote found that sleep-deprived people are less likely to notice when others are engaged in unethical behavior, and less able to judge the ethics of a situation.

On the specific Monday in question, he found a significant drop in web searches for “moral words” (“unethical,” “corrupt,” “guilty”), suggesting that people aren’t terribly worried about ethics that day. The good news, Barnes says, is that sleeping in just 30 minutes on that Monday can split the likelihood of making bad choices in half. So you might consider calling in sleepy.  

 

Rearview Mirror: Spinasse at Home, a New Spa Experience, and Seattle Mag’s Reader’s Choice Awards 

Rearview Mirror: Spinasse at Home, a New Spa Experience, and Seattle Mag’s Reader’s Choice Awards 

Things I did, saw, ate, learned, or read in the past week (or so).

YOUR VOTE MATTERS Everyone has a favorite restaurant, coffee shop, or local boutique. Call me old-school, but I will die on the hill that Caffe Vita has the best coffee in town. Disagree with me? Now’s your moment to speak up. Each year, we survey Seattle magazine readers, asking them to weigh in on everything…

Studio Sessions: Ling Chun

Studio Sessions: Ling Chun

The Seattle-based artist brings playful color to ceramics and neon while exploring memory, transformation, and life between cultures.

For Ling Chun, creating begins with something sensed before it can be named. Working with clay, glass, light, and sometimes synthetic hair, the Hong Kong-born artist gives physical form to things that words cannot always hold. “For me, the magnitude of making goes far beyond the object that is eventually produced,” Chun says. “The object…

The Magic of PAX Is Stronger Than Ever

The Magic of PAX Is Stronger Than Ever

PAX West draws more than 100,000 people to Seattle each year. Co-founder Jerry Holkins reflects on what the gaming convention set out to change, how its community has grown and why gathering face to face still matters.

Access to game news as it was happening was difficult back in the day. Even with the advent of the internet, communication between game publishers and journalists was still a very elite affair.  I used to fake credentials—via fax machine!—to attend the Electronic Entertainment Expo, mostly just known as E3. It was simultaneously as loud…

Your Guide to Bumbershoot 2026

Your Guide to Bumbershoot 2026

Navigate Seattle’s wildest end-of-summer weekend with 20 picks spanning Death Cab for Cutie, Blood Orange, wrestling, skateboarding and—obviously—movies made in 48 hours.

Four years after Bumbershoot returned with its quirkiness revivified, Seattleites broadly acknowledge the two-day multimedia extravaganza as a welcome finale to the summer festival season. Fests like Bumbershoot are designed around a choose-your-own-adventure model, but if you’re the kind of person who looked at this year’s sprawling lineup—featuring multiple bands, artists, and exhibits happening at…