整日奔忙于工作和家庭的女性总是抱怨时间不够用。为此，加拿大一些女性自发成立了一个名为“25小时联盟”的组织，呼吁政府将现行的时钟体系改为25小时，以便让她们有多一点的时间完成工作和家庭两方面的责任。哈佛大学一位教授1999年的研究显示，无论老幼，人体生物节律每天的平均周期为24小时11分钟。这位教授在2007年的一项研究还表明，延长一天的时间周期对人是有益处的；宇航员，还有那些经常出门、需要轮班、以及有睡眠问题的人尤其会获益良多。据“25小时联盟”创始人介绍，目前时钟都是720分钟走一圈360度，每分钟走0.5度。如果把时钟调整为25个小时，也就是每一圈增加30分钟，那么每分钟时针走过的角度就变成0.48度。

Ever feel like there aren't enough hours in the day? A group of time-challenged Canadian women are lobbying for a 25-hour clock.

Jessie Behan, president and founder of the 25th Hour Coalition which is group of Canadian women who have changed to a longer day, said the struggle for women to maintain work-life balance motivated her to research the body's natural circadian rhythms.

"A bunch of my girlfriends are having kids, getting married, and I was seeing the insanity of juggling all that when you're a working woman," she told Reuters.

"Women like myself are sick of living their lives by a 24-hour clock when studies have shown that they're naturally set to a 25-hour clock."

A 2007 study by Charles Czeisler, a Harvard professor of sleep medicine, found that a switch to longer days could be beneficial, especially for frequent travelers, shift workers, astronauts and those who experience trouble sleeping or waking.

In a similar study published in 1999, Czeisler showed that the body's natural clock, or circadian rhythms, averages 24 hours and 11 minutes in both young and older people.

The current 360-degree clock has 720 minutes, giving each minute 0.5 degrees. With the new 25-hour day, 30 minutes is added to each 12-hour period making each minute 0.48 degrees.

While still a relatively small movement, the 25th Hour Coalition has 160 Facebook members, Behan is hoping for large changes.

"The goal is to get as many women on board; there is no harm in just trying it out and seeing. If it gets big, maybe the government will decide to standardize it."

A recent online survey by Reader's Digest, which included 150 people in each of the 13 countries, suggests it's not just Canadians looking for longer days. Readers were asked "what would you do with an extra hour" if given a choice between sleep, work, exercise and family time.

In Spain, half of respondents said they would like an extra hour in the day to devote to family time. The same was found for respondents in Brazil, the U.S. and Britain, who chose family time over sleep, which came in at a close second.

Only in India did work top the list with 50 percent of respondents claiming they could use an extra hour at the office.