03/11/2024

Daylight Saving Time Is Bad For Our Internal Clocks, Too

Research indicates changing the clocks creates a host of health, safety problems

On a recent trip to Tucson, I heard zero complaints about a pending hour of lost sleep. On March 10, 2024, when most clocks across the country will advance one hour for daylight saving time (DST), no one in that city will be scrambling to remember how to adjust the time on their microwaves or car dashboards. And as the leaders of nearby states, including my home state of Washington, hold hearings about whether to ditch the antiquated practice of springing forward and falling back—with fiercely opposing views about which way to lock the clock—Arizona leaders have no need. The state has run on standard time since 1968.

Most of the rest of us are set to repeat the biannual dance. Research tells us that changing our clocks burdens us with a host of health and safety problems, on top of the annoyances. The polls tell us that we widely agree we should stop. Congress even permits us, and scientific and medical experts beg us, to follow the lead of Arizona and Hawaii and opt out of daylight saving time in favor of full-time standard time. Yet, here we still are fiddling with our clocks, without an end to the practice in sight.

Over the last few weeks, Oregon and Washington fell shy of advancing respective permanent standard time legislation. Other states continue to debate similar bills—all of which seem to have been introduced out of impatience. Oregon and Washington are among more than 12 states that have already passed legislation for the more publicly popular year-round daylight saving time. But that move is contingent on Congress changing federal law to allow for it. And momentum has waned. The latest iteration of the Sunshine Protection Act, which nearly passed in 2022, has fewer cosponsors. The question of "What time is it?" has become a political hot potato.

Please select this link to read the complete article from TIME.