Changing clocks is bad for your health, but which time to choose?
Category: Health, Science & Technology
Via: perrie-halpern • 4 years ago • 37 commentsBy: Roxie Hammill, Kaiser Health News
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Changing over to daylight saving time — a major annoyance for many people — may be on its way out as lawmakers cite public health as a prime reason to ditch the twice-yearly clock-resetting ritual.
The time change, especially in the spring, has been blamed for increases in heart attacks and traffic accidents as people adjust to a temporary sleep deficit. But as legislatures across the country consider bills to end the clock shift, a big question looms ahead of this year’s March 8 change: Which is better, summer hours or standard time?
There are some strong opinions, it turns out. And they are split, with scientists and politicians at odds.
Retailers, chambers of commerce and recreational industries have historically wanted the sunny evenings that allow more time to shop and play.
Researchers on human biological rhythms come down squarely on the side of the standard, wintertime hours referred to as “God’s time” by angry farmers who objected to daylight saving time when it was first widely adopted during World War I.
What’s not in question is that the clock switching is unpopular. Some 71 percent of people want to stop springing forward and falling back, according to a 2019 Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll.
Politicians have reacted accordingly. More than 200 state bills have been filed since 2015 to either keep summer hours or go to permanent standard time, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
The measures getting the most traction right now are for permanent daylight saving time, which makes more sun available for after-work activities. In 2018, Florida passed a bill and California voters backed a ballot measure to do so. Maine, Delaware, Tennessee, Oregon and Washington joined in 2019, passing permanent daylight saving bills. President Donald Trump even joined the conversation last March, tweeting: “Making Daylight Saving Time permanent is O.K. with me!”
But none of those efforts can become reality without the blessing of Congress. States have always been able to opt out of summer hours and adopt standard time permanently, as Arizona and Hawaii have done. But making daylight saving time year-round is another story.
Still, Scott Yates, whose #Lock the Clock website has become a resource for lawmakers pushing for change, believes this year will be another big year. Yates is particularly encouraged by the attitude he saw from state legislators in August when he presented on the issue at the legislators’ annual national summit in Nashville, Tennessee.
“I wasn’t the court jester and it wasn’t entertainment,” he said. “It was like, ‘What are the practical ways we can get this thing passed?’”
Seeking to end 'spring ahead, fall back' cycle
Yates, 54, a tech startup CEO based in Denver, has been promoting an end to clock switching for six years. He doesn’t pick a side. It’s the switching itself that he wants to end. At first, it was just about the grogginess and annoyance of being off schedule, he said. But then he began to see scientific studies that showed the changes were doing actual harm.
A German study of autopsies from 2006 to 2015, for instance, showed a significant uptick just after the spring switch in deaths caused by cardiac disease, traffic accidents and suicides. Researchers have also noted a significant increased risk for heart attacks and strokes.
Three measures pending in Congress would allow states to make daylight saving time permanent. But, in the meantime, state lawmakers who want the extra evening sunlight are preparing resolutions and bills, some of which would be triggered by congressional approval and the adoption of daylight time in surrounding states.
The Illinois Senate passed such a bill, and Kansas is considering one after a bill to end daylight saving time died there last year. Utah passed a resolution in support of the congressional bill last year, and state Rep. Ray Ward , a Republican family physician from Bountiful, is steering a recently passed state Senate permanent daylight bill through the House.
“The human clock was not built to jump back and forth. That’s why we get jet lag,” said Ward, who was a co-presenter with Yates at the NCSL summit. “It is very easy to show that if you knock people off an hour of sleep there’s a bump temporarily in bad things that will happen.”
Efforts have been particularly strong in California, where 60 percent of voters passed a ballot issue for permanent daylight time in 2018. A bill is pending in the state Assembly.
Science backs sticking with standard time
All of this alarms scientists who study human biological rhythms.
Researchers in the U.S. and the European Union have taken strong positions about permanent summer hours. The Society for Research on Biological Rhythms posts its opposition prominently at the top of its website.
Messing with the body’s relationship to the sun can negatively affect not only sleep but also cardiac function, weight and cancer risk, the society’s members wrote. According to one often-quoted study on different health outcomes within the same time zones, each 20 minutes of later sunrise corresponded to an increase in certain cancers by 4 percent to 12 percent.
“Believe it or not, having light in the morning actually not only makes you feel more alert but helps you go to bed at the right time at night,” said Dr. Beth Malow , director of the sleep division of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Malow has seen a lot of anecdotal evidence to back that up at the sleep clinic. Parents report their children with autism have a particularly hard time adjusting to the time change, she said.
Jay Pea, a freelance software engineer in San Francisco, was unhappy enough about California’s proposed permanent daylight time that he started the Save Standard Time website to promote the health arguments for keeping it permanent. He said he doesn’t think the scientific community is being heard.
“Essentially it’s like science denial,” he said. “It’s bizarre to me that politicians are not hearing the experts on this.”
Pea, 41 and an amateur astronomer, understands the human need to have the sun directly overhead at noon. “It’s a wonderful connection to natural reality that unfortunately is lost on many people,” he said. Daylight saving time “distances us from the natural world.”
At the very least, lawmakers ought to consider history, he said. Daylight saving time was originally a plan to save energy during the two world wars but wasn’t popular enough to be uniformly embraced after the conflicts were over. In 1974, the federal government decided to make it temporarily year-round as a way to deal with the energy crisis (although energy savings were later found to be underwhelming).
Its popularity fell off a cliff after the first winter, when people discovered the sun didn’t rise until 8 a.m. or later and parents worried for the safety of kids waiting in the dark for school buses.
Pea finds it frustrating that the momentum now is for permanent summer hours — a fact he attributes to the emotional attachment with summer. “It’s a shame that every generation we have to revisit this issue,” he said.
The AP-NORC poll found 40 percent of its respondents support permanent standard time, with 31% opting for permanent daylight saving time.
Ward said people have gotten comfortable with daylight saving time since its duration has been lengthened to eight months by extensions in 1986 and 2007. (Before 1986, daylight saving time lasted six months.)
“So now really most of the year we are on the summer schedule, and people are used to that and they like it,” he said. “That makes them more aggrieved when we change back to the winter schedule.”
In any case, changing the clocks is a rare issue in that it isn’t partisan, Ward said. “If the government can’t respond to people when they want something and it’s not even a partisan issue, that’s just a sad commentary,” he said. “Can’t we please fix something that doesn’t make sense anymore?”
Kaiser Health News is a nonprofit news service covering health issues. It is an editorially independent program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.
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There is no time confusion in China. Beijing time applies from east to west across the whole country and there is no "spring forward fall back" daylight saving time applied.
I think we should all be on "standard" time but adjust society so that our schedules are flexible, prioritizing health. There's no intrinsic virtue to getting up at 6 or 7 specifically, showing up to work at 8 or 9 specifically, getting off at 5, and so on.
Personally I think this whole thing is much to do about nothing. It’s a minor inconvenience at worst imo. Just one more thing for folks to whine about one way or the other.
I suspect that one day someone will figure out that small amounts of saliva, swallowed over a long period of time, is not good for your health.
l suspect, some will find this hard to swallow
I suspect ..... more won’t care what they suspected
Standard time is most sensible, it's called that for a reason. The whole world uses it. When I was younger there were some states, like Va. for example, the used DST and some states, like N.C. for example,that did not. As a kid I liked that because tv stations that came out of Va. broadcast prime time shows an hour earlier than N.C. Stations. No conflicts.
I think it's Newfoundland that is 1/2 hr. .different than the rest of Canada,which is kind of weird.
Sorry, it's Nova Scotia, not Newfoundland, that is 1/2 hr ahead of the rest of the time zone
Actually you were correct the first time, it is Newfoundland
OH. Well...either way Newfie music rocks!
this is the good one, the fast version with the Chieftains.
My Dad was an agricultural agent for the USDA back in the 1960's when Daylight Saving Time was first instituted where we lived. An old farm lady accosted him loudly exclaiming, "The last damn thing my tomatoes need is another hour of burning sunshine".
She actually believed that the government was making the sun shine an extra hour every day.
Yet, most Americans probably still don't get the joke!
Most people hate sending their kids off to school in the dark in Winter and we all enjoy having the extra after working hours sunshine in Summer...
Lol ... i like it!
Anything that keeps me from having to change free-hanging clocks, kitchen appliance-related clocks, a small army of wrist-watch times, ect..., is strictly ok with me.
I don't like the day we turn the clocks back, makes winter even worse
AZ does not have DST and it has worked out fine for them.
Daylight savings time has only become irrelevant because of the increasing abundance and availability of fossil fuels. Daylight savings time was established when sunlight was more important. As fossil fuels are eliminated, daylight savings time will again become more relevant.
Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Daylight savings time will become a more important factor for addressing climate change.
I always thought it was for farmers to give them the extra time they could work their crops.
Can you imagine being so fragile that an hour shift in the day, twice a year, would cause you to have a heart attack or stroke?
That's what I was thinking, statistics without context. If you are on your way out anything can flip the switch without actually being the cause. If they checked they'd find Monday mornings, visits from in-laws, and unanticipated bills all have the same statistical effect. I think the spike in car accidents are mostly from jackasses who forgot to change their clocks and are running late. Also the human clock theory is crap too since most people stay up and sleep later on the weekend anyway. If daylight saving time was really that dangerous then working third shift would be absolutely deadly and should be banned immediately. I wonder what statistical effect darkness during the morning commute would have ?
Never really had any difficulty adjusting either way, so I guess it's no biggie for me what the powers that be decide.
I'm the same way although falling back is better. You feel like you are getting a free hour.
I don't care which - just pick one and stick with it. Every year state houses across the country bring this up and every year it get's tabled again until the next year. Someday enough states will just do it and the rest of the country will have to follow.
IMO, this is an immense non issue. You change the clock one hour twice a year, ....big deal. How is this even an "issue" ?
I have never heard anyone in "real life" complain about this.
Here in C.S.T. , we like having an extra hour of light in the warm weather months. Millions of people enjoy outdoor activities long into the evening when it doesnt get dark until 8:45 or 9 p.m.
In the winter the clock change means it will be daylight when most people go to work or school at 7:30 a.m.
I think the present system is fine as is.
Studies show higher fatality rates in car accidents after the time change, and numerous other problems.
It's dark when I leave for work either way. It would be nice not to have it be dark both when I leave AND when I get home, so I get to enjoy at least a little daylight.
I like more daylight in the evening, especially in the winter
i like more darkness in the day,
especially in a dark room with colorful negativity,
but just cause i'm not bright,
makes it so, to me, seem just Wright
Bros
I want to go with daylight savings time all year. Like charger says above, I hate winter because it gets dark so damn early. I go to work in the dark and come home in the dark
Same here. I want the daylight after work, so I can actually do something after work.
I fricken hated that. When i worked in a hospital my office was in the basement. No windows. Sometimes we would go days without seeing any daylight.
We called ourselves mole-people.
It was like that in Alaska from about December 1 to March 1.
I have a window at least
Close to that for me in Yukon and Labrador sun would come up at 1100ish and set at 1400ish. It also wasn't really daylight, it was more of a long sunrise followed immediately by a long sunset
Exactly! We would go out for lunch every day just to make sure we got that itty bit of Vitamin D
If we had DST year round the Sun would not be fully up until about 9:00 A.M. in the dead of Winter and kids would have to be at their bus stops in the full dark of night at the coldest time of year...
Only if they lived in the far reaches of Maine
one or the other? false choice.
set the clocks dead center between the two.
I say we should spring forward 30 mins and just leave it there