- Reaction score
- 1,733
Everyone in Spain feels jetlagged all the time, even if they haven't been traveling. That is, at least, the finding of a new Spanish parliamentary report on the country’s labor conditions, which concludes that Spain is needlessly crippled by its timezone, which keeps it one hour out of step with the countries around it. After 70 years in its current time zone, the report says, Spain should shift an hour back.
Spain sits in the middle of the Western European time zone, to which Portugal, Morocco and the U.K. also belong. But because of a weird twist of history, it actually observes Central European time, running an hour ahead of daylight. That might sound like no big deal to Americans, who switch their clocks twice a year anyway -- but there’s a growing body of evidence that it’s really hurting the Spanish, contributing to everything from low worker productivity to a persistent gender gap.
The problem, argues the report, is that the Spanish keep working until the natural end of daylight hours, even though they’re going to work an hour earlier, on Central time. In other words, their sleep schedules are synced to the "artificial" time zone, but their work hours sync up with daylight time. This extra-long workday has given us some fun Spanish cultural quirks, like the 9 p.m. dinner hour and the two-hour lunch break. But it also means that people stay up later and wake up earlier than they should – hence the constant feeling of jet lag. People in Spain also spend more time outside the house than they might otherwise. (This latter issue is particularly tricky for working women, who get a pretty tough break in Spain to begin with.)
Interesting and thought-provoking...
Spain sits in the middle of the Western European time zone, to which Portugal, Morocco and the U.K. also belong. But because of a weird twist of history, it actually observes Central European time, running an hour ahead of daylight. That might sound like no big deal to Americans, who switch their clocks twice a year anyway -- but there’s a growing body of evidence that it’s really hurting the Spanish, contributing to everything from low worker productivity to a persistent gender gap.
The problem, argues the report, is that the Spanish keep working until the natural end of daylight hours, even though they’re going to work an hour earlier, on Central time. In other words, their sleep schedules are synced to the "artificial" time zone, but their work hours sync up with daylight time. This extra-long workday has given us some fun Spanish cultural quirks, like the 9 p.m. dinner hour and the two-hour lunch break. But it also means that people stay up later and wake up earlier than they should – hence the constant feeling of jet lag. People in Spain also spend more time outside the house than they might otherwise. (This latter issue is particularly tricky for working women, who get a pretty tough break in Spain to begin with.)
Interesting and thought-provoking...
Last edited by a moderator:
