Ciara Long ’29
Staff Writer
This past week, have you found yourself annoyed that by the time you walk to dinner it’s already dark outside? Maybe you felt uncharacteristically fatigued in the evenings because of the early onset darkness. Due to the change you might have begun to wonder why we even have daylight saving in the first place. If so, you are not alone, as according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 63% of Americans want to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, and I believe that it has no place in today’s modern world.
Daylight Saving Time goes against our natural circadian rhythms, which are our internal clocks that regulate our cycles of sleep, appetite, and other processes in our body. This cycle is connected to light, as when it begins to get dark our bodies produce melatonin, which naturally makes people tired. As the sun goes down the levels of melatonin in the body goes up, and since the fall time change has made the sunset earlier, people find their bodies being thrown off their natural rhythm. For example, the day before the timechange, on November 1st, the sun began to set here in Worcester at 5:39pm, but the very next day the sun began to set at 4:36pm. Although this shift is only slightly over an hour, the body is misaligned with the change of time, and exhaustion sets in earlier.
There are many myths and arguments in favor of daylight saving time that simply have no factual basis. It is often believed that daylight saving time was put in place to help farmers, but in reality farmers often oppose the time change as it messes with their animals’ internal schedules, creates harvesting issues, and overall has no real benefit. Daylight saving time was really put in place in the United States during World War I as a temporary measure so that factory workers used less electricity for lighting and was repealed after the war. Contrary to popular belief, daylight saving is not a centuries long tradition and was only standardized across America in 1966 after it was reinstated during the second world war. Therefore, daylight saving historically is more of a wartime measure and outdated in modern day society.
Not only is Daylight saving time relatively useless, but it can cause severe health issues and accidents. A John Hopkins University paper reports that the time change in the spring is linked to an increase in car accidents due to exhaustion. Additionally, the article lists the devastating effects that the time change can have on your health such as increased chances of heart attacks, strokes, and overall hospital admissions. This all is due to disruptions in sleep, as even the slightest disruption of sleep can increase health risks, so daylight saving changing sleep patterns twice a year detriments the health of millions of Americans.
The benefits of the time change are practically non-existent in comparison to its overwhelming disadvantages such as exhaustion, health issues, and misalignment with our natural clock. That makes me wonder, is that extra hour of light in the morning worth the chaos it brings with it?
Featured image courtesy of Wikipedia
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