Should We Abolish Daylight Saving Time? A Complete Review

Explore the debate on whether we should abolish Daylight Saving Time. Learn about its health impacts, social clock misalignments, and expert opinions.

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Changing the clocks for Daylight Saving Time can make Mondays tough & affect your health and safety. Experts are now calling for an end to the confusion caused by switching between time changes twice a year. Instead, they suggest keeping a permanent Standard Time. Anita Shelgikar, M.D., MHPE, a professor of neurology and co-author of a statement from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, explains why she believes we should stop changing the clocks and stick to Standard Time permanently.

Less than 200 years ago, people followed the sun’s schedule, which matched their body clocks. Now, most of us live in cities, work indoors and use artificial light at night. We follow a social clock that doesn’t match the sun or our body clocks, which can harm our health and safety. Daylight Saving Time (DST) makes this even worse. This paper explains how these clocks got out of sync and the problems it causes.

How Light Affects Our Health

All living things have a body clock that controls daily routines like eating, sleeping, and thinking. This clock needs to match the 24-hour day. Sunlight during the day and darkness at night help keep it in sync. In cities, we get less sunlight and more electric light which affects our body clock. While electric light helps, natural sunlight is much brighter and works better. Light is important for our daily habits and overall health.

Why Does the Natural Day Matter?

The Earth rotates eastward, which is why the sun rises in the east, reaches its highest point at midday, and sets in the west. Our schedules follow a “social clock” within a time zone, but our body clocks still follow the sun’s path (the “sun clock”). The sun moves 4 minutes across each longitude, and 15 longitudes make up one time zone, which takes the sun an hour to cross.

Time zones don’t always line up with longitude lines. Some countries, like China, have larger time zones, so the sun takes longer to cross them. Even though we follow the social clock, our body clocks still adjust based on the natural daylight we see throughout the day.

People in the eastern portion of a time zone have body clocks that correspond to the social clock, whereas those in the western part may be out of synch. This can cause health complications. According to studies, persons in the west of a time zone have greater health difficulties & live shorter lives.

This happens because the social clock (set by humans) and the biological clock (set by the sun) get more out of sync as you move west. For example, if two people wake up at 7 a.m., one in the east may feel it’s 7 a.m., while the one in the west may feel it’s 6 a.m. This difference can cause health problems.

Daylight Saving Time

Many years ago, politicians introduced Daylight Saving Time (DST), which shifts the social clock one hour earlier in the spring and summer. The idea was to save energy by reducing the use of electric lights in the evening (Kotchen and Grant, 2011; Mirza and Bergland, 2011). However, this wasn’t true (Aries and Newsham, 2008), but DST is still used so people can start work earlier in the summer.

DST disrupts the connection between the social clock and the sun clock. For example, in New York, the social clock matches the sun clock in winter. When the social clock says noon, it is close to midday, the sun’s highest point. But during DST, New York’s social clock says noon when it is actually 11 AM by the sun clock. This means people must wake up earlier by the sun clock. In winter, they wake up at 6 AM by the sun clock, but in DST, they must wake up at 5 AM, even though the social clock shows 6 AM.

In a way, DST forces people to work as if they are in a time zone further east, affecting their body clocks. This change can impact health.

How Daylight Saving Time Impacts Our Health

There are some benefits to Daylight Saving Time (DST), like coming home earlier (by the sun clock) from work or school and having more daylight in the evenings. However, DST also causes problems that can be either short-term (acute) or long-term (chronic).

In the days after the sudden switch to DST in spring, people experience acute effects, such as shorter sleep duration (Barnes and Wagner, 2009, Harrison, 2013), poor performance (Gaski and Sagarin, 2011), and worse health. For example, heart attacks are more common during this time (Janszky and Ljung, 2008, Manfredini et al., 2018), and there may be more traffic accidents (Carey and Sarma, 2017, Coren, 1996a, Hicks et al., 1983).

The chronic effects of DST last throughout the months of DST, as many people’s body clocks and social clocks stay out of sync (Hadlow et al., 2014). Research has shown that the mismatch between the body clock and the social clock can cause health issues (Koopman et al., 2017, Mota et al., 2017, Parsons et al., 2015). These issues can include decreased life expectancy (Borisenkov, 2011), shorter sleep (Borisenkov et al., 2017, Wittmann et al., 2006), and cognitive problems (Díaz-Morales and Escribano, 2015, Haraszti et al., 2014).

If DST were observed all year long, the chronic effects would worsen. This is because body clocks are typically set later in winter than in summer (Kantermann et al., 2007). The combination of DST and winter would make the time difference between body clocks and social clocks even worse, negatively affecting health further. Additionally, sleep disturbances cost approximately 2% of GDP (Hafner et al., 2017).

Daylight Saving Time (DST) is a political decision and can be changed. To improve health, we should stop fighting our body clock and stick to Standard Time year-round. This would solve both short-term and long-term problems caused by DST. We support eliminating DST changes and choosing permanent Standard Time for the health and safety of everyone.

Conclusion

Governments worldwide are considering ending the yearly switch between Daylight Saving Time (DST) and Standard Time (ST). The Society for Research on Biological Rhythms (SRBR) gathered experts to write a Position Paper on the effects of living with DST or ST. The paper argues that permanent ST is better than switching to DST, based on studies of large populations and time zones. Four experts reviewed the paper, and the SRBR Executive Board approved it to help inform the public about current efforts to end DST.

FAQ

What is Daylight Saving Time (DST)?

DST is the practice of moving the clock forward one hour in the spring and back again in the fall, shifting daylight hours to allow more daylight in the evening.

How does DST affect our health?

The shift caused by DST can disrupt our body clock, leading to sleep loss, poor performance, and health issues such as heart attacks and traffic accidents.

Why do some countries still use DST?

Originally, DST was introduced to save energy by reducing the use of electric lights, though it has since been debated whether this benefit truly exists.

Should we get rid of DST permanently?

Many experts recommend abolishing DST because it disrupts our natural body rhythms. Switching to permanent Standard Time could help improve health and safety.

What are the effects of permanent DST?

Studies suggest that permanent DST could worsen the gap between our body clock and social clock, leading to more health problems like sleep disturbances, cognitive issues, and decreased life expectancy.