Daylight Danger Time: Most People Prefer No Time Changes

A lot of doctors are betting you didn’t sleep well recently. Their explanation: Daylight Saving.

Benjamin Franklin was a big backer of the idea when he was living in Paris because he said Parisians would burn less candle wax if they had an extra hour of daylight. It did not catch on in the City of Lights.

In a 2015 video about daylight saving, Michael Downing author of “Spring Forward: The Annual Madness of Daylight Saving Time,” said: “What we don’t tend to know as Americans is that the biggest lobby on behalf of daylight saving since 1915 in this country—and to this very day—is the Chamber of Commerce. They understood something very early on: If you give workers daylight, when they leave their jobs, they are much more apt to stop and shop on their way home.”

The twice-a-year clock switching didn’t actually get government backing until World War I as a way to save fuel and increase the length of the working day. In 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act setting the nationwide dates of daylight-saving time from the last Sunday in April until the last Sunday in October. In 2007, that was updated to the second Sunday in March until the first Sunday in November–dates that remain in effect today although States retain the option to opt out. Arizona and Hawaii are on permanent standard time, along with Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and American Samoa.

Many sleep experts consider those the right choices. In testimony to Congress two years ago and an interview with the web site Live Science, neurologist Beth Ann Malow, director of Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s sleep division, explained that “the transition to daylight saving time each spring affects health immediately after the clock change and also for the nearly eight months that Americans remain on daylight saving time.”

Malow’s argument rests on the fact that standard time keeps the human body and brain in sync with natural light, meaning most importantly, the sun directly overhead at or near noon, a link that “sets natural circadian rhythms, improves alertness, and boosts mood.” Exactly how and why remains a mystery, although the presumption is that exposure to natural light is linked to levels of cortisol, a hormone that soothes stress.

On the other hand, exposure to light later into the evening delays the brain’s release of melatonin, the hormone that promotes drowsiness. This is particularly problematic for teens whose bodies release melatonin to be released later at night, delaying the natural signal that sends them off to dreamland. Which may be later in the West than in the East.

One early American/Swiss study showed that folks on “the western edge of a time zone”(think California and Russia) whose DST light begins to shine later in the morning and lasts later into the evening, got less sleep than those on the Eastern edge.

Malow is not alone in her support for standard time. Among the dozens of organizations that agree permanent Standard Time is the way to go are World Sleep Society, European Sleep Research Society, U.S.-based Sleep Research Society, American College of Occupational & Environmental Medicine, National Safety Council, and the National PTA. The American Heart Association joins them, pointing to a “marked increase” in strokes and heart attacks in the days after clocks are set one hour ahead of standard time.

Nonetheless, there’s no guarantee that there’ll be any change soon. Back in March 2022, the U.S. Senate passed a bill from Oklahoma Senator James Langford dubbed the Sunshine Protection Act in a bid to make daylight saving time permanent. At the time, Robert Roy Britt, author of Make Sleep Your Superpower: A Guide to Greater Health, Happiness & Productivity, wrote that the Senators might have been groggy during the vote, since they’d “just endured the clock’s annual jump forward.” The Act, which unanimously passed in the Senate, was never taken up by the House. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio reintroduced the bill recently, but it’s not expected to move anywhere any time soon despite polls showing that nearly two thirds of all Americans would prefer ending the time changes. The problem may be that there’s no clear preference for either Standard or Daylight hours. Lacking clear direction from voters, given the myriad issues in this election year, our representatives may just let the light changes linger.

Sweet dreams, everyone.