The pre-school motto "early to bed, early to rise" could help adults cope with the extra stress brought about by switching to daylight time, sleep experts say. Canada and the United States made the switch in the early morning hours on Sunday.

Dr. Ralph Downey, chief of sleep medicine at the Loma Linda University Medical Center in California warns that while adults look forward to the extra hour of daylight, they often overlook that daylight time could also cause sleep deprivation.

At 2 a.m. local time on Sunday, most of the country - except Saskatchewan and the Nunavut Territory - switched from standard to daylight time in an effort to help conserve energy.

Canada has decided to coordinate when it goes on Daylight Savings Time (DST) with the United States. The U.S. Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandates that DST starts on the second Sunday in March and that it ends on the first Sunday in November.

Downey says the loss of an hour of sleep is heightened by the fact that most adults don't get enough sleep to begin with.

The doctor stresses that daylight time is the perfect opportunity to make people aware of the importance of getting enough sleep: getting up an hour earlier for work should therefore mean turning in an hour ahead.