Decades earlier, faulty decision-making resulted in the deaths of the seven-person crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger.

Years before these events, a stuck valve regulating the supply of coolant to a nuclear reactor nearly resulted in the meltdown of a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. In each of these cases, poor or inadequate sleep was one of the factors that contributed to the failure.

Even if you are not an engineer working in one of those contexts, the odds are pretty good that you occasionally get a poor night’s sleep. In fact, over one-third of American adults sleep less than the suggested minimum seven hours a night and two-thirds of American teens sleep less than their minimum recommended eight hours. Even for those with good sleep hygiene, there is one time of year when you are likely to be short on sleep—the annual shift to daylight saving time.

As an organizational psychologist at the University of Oregon, I have examined a variety of ways in which sleep affects employees. In particular, my colleagues and I investigate how circadian misalignment caused by the shift to daylight saving time leads to costly work and social outcomes.

Even with the extra daylight, the facts don’t look so good

The American public has had a love-hate relationship with daylight saving time since it first became law in 1918. Personal preferences aside, the empirical evidence for the intended benefits of daylight saving time is mixed at best, whereas the costs of the switch to daylight saving time are becoming increasingly evident.

At the crux of these costs is the effect of the time shift on our sleep patterns. When we spring forward, the clocks on the wall advance, but our body clocks do not change so readily. It generally takes a few days for us to adapt to the time change in a way that allows us to fall asleep at our typical time. The upshot is that Americans sleep approximately 40 minutes less than usual on the Sunday to Monday night following the switch.