March 24th, 2022
After the Sunshine Protection Act was introduced in the U.S. Congress last March, The PediaBlog examined the pros and cons of making daylight saving time (DST) permanent. The stated benefits of year-round DST were mostly economic: More late afternoon and early evening light means higher consumer spending, giving the overall economy a boost. On the other hand, medical research tells us that DST interferes with the body’s natural circadian rhythm, which sleep experts say can lead to significant physical and mental health consequences.
Simply keeping things the way they are — turning the clocks forward one hour in March and back one hour in November — also has its drawbacks:
Anne Buckle argues that simply changing the clocks twice a year can make people sick:
Changing the time, even if it is only by one hour, disrupts our body clocks or circadian rhythm. For most people, the resulting tiredness is simply an inconvenience. For some, however, the time change can have more serious consequences to their health.
• Studies link the lack of sleep at the start of DST to car accidents, workplace injuries, suicide, and miscarriages.
• The early evening darkness after the end of the DST period is linked to depression.
• The risk of suffering a heart attack is also increased when DST begins. However, the extra hour of sleep we get at the end of DST has, in turn, been linked to fewer heart attacks.
The status quo is so unpopular that Congress has been pressured for years to choose between standard time and daylight saving time and sticking with it. Last week the Senate finally made its decision. Without debating the bill, senators considered three choices — permanent standard time, biannual switching (the status quo), or permanent daylight savings — before unanimously voting for permanent DST beginning in November 2023.
The decision to stay on a single, year-round time schedule was applauded by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, reports Judy George. However, of the three choices facing them, AASM said the senators regrettably (though somewhat predictably) chose the worst option:
The AASM issued its first position statement about daylight saving time in 2020, advocating that public health and safety would benefit by abolishing seasonal time changes and switching to a fixed, national, year-round standard time. The statement was supported by the American College of Chest Physicians, the National Safety Council, the National Parent Teacher Association, and other groups.
“Permanent standard time is better aligned to human circadian biology because the natural, daily cycle of light and darkness is a powerful timing cue that synchronizes with your internal body clock,” AASM spokesperson Shalini Paruthi, MD, of St. Louis University School of Medicine, told MedPage Today.
“Daylight saving time increases morning exposure to darkness and evening exposure to sunlight, therefore disrupting the timing of our bodies’ circadian rhythm, causing negative impacts on health and safety,” Paruthi added.
We’ve been down this road before. Responding to a global energy crisis, Congress in 1974 opted for permanent DST. Brittany Shammas reminds us how much we hated it:
It was still dark when most Americans set off for work and school the morning of Jan. 7, 1974. Commuters grumbled about having to descend to the subways and report to work without glimpsing the sun. Some kids carried flashlights on their way to school. One woman was so overwhelmed, she simply went back to bed.
“It’s the end,” Terry Minz, of Long Island, N.Y., told the New York Times. “I can’t cope anymore. The comet, the energy crisis, now darkness. I’m just staying in bed.”
So it went the last time the United States took a run at year-round daylight saving time. The experiment, which meant a sunrise of 8:30 a.m. or later for large swaths of the nation, proved short-lived. Amid a swell of public displeasure and a series of early-morning traffic fatalities, Congress voted to undo the change 10 months in.
Allyson Chiu describes the body’s reaction when daylight hits our retinas:
“The circadian clock, it’s not just something that involves the cells of your brain,” [AASM’s] Cheng said. “The circadian clock also regulates rhythms in other areas of the body — like cells of the heart, like cells of the liver — and by altering our natural circadian rhythm in this way, we’re throwing off that biological rhythm, and that’s a longer term effect.”
While no time system will be perfect for everyone, making daylight saving time permanent would lead to a greater number of dark mornings than we have now, said Phyllis Zee, chief of sleep medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
“With daylight saving time, we are perpetually out of synchronization with our internal clocks and we often achieve less nighttime sleep, both circumstances having negative health impacts,” Neubauer said. “Extra evening light suppresses the melatonin that should be preparing us for falling asleep. The later dawn during daylight saving time deprives our biological clocks of the critical light signal.”
Amy Joyce worries how teenagers will respond to permanent DST:
As kids get older, waking them in the mornings can feel like a herculean task. Now that Daylight Saving Time may become permanent, thanks to last week’s quick Senate vote, experts on teen health and sleep are frantic to get the word out: Teens are already sleep-deprived, and this permanent time change will be detrimental to their health and wellness.
“I think it’s honestly going to be pretty brutal,” says Craig Canapari, director of the Yale Pediatric Sleep Center and a pediatrician. “Everybody likes the day being longer at the end of the day, but you have to subtract that sunlight from somewhere.”
For teenagers, subtracting sunlight from their already-early mornings will throw their circadian rhythm off even more, causing them to sleepwalk through their first classes and exams as their bodies wait to naturally awake with sunlight.
Passed by the Senate, the bill moves on to the House of Representatives for consideration. However, there doesn’t seem to be any rush for the House to rubber stamp what appears to be ill-considered and flawed legislation.
Americans clearly want to either “spring forward” or “fall back” one last time. Let’s hope the best available science persuades lawmakers to make the best choice, especially for the sake of our children.
