Time Warp
With each subject I find myself thinking about these days, I become more and more baffled. It feels like we’re living in a science fiction movie and the saying ,“Truth is stranger than fiction”, jumps into my mind. Every year, I converse with friends about the discomforts of the time changes. It’s something that I have objected to for as long as I can remember. In fact, it was one of the motivating factors for me to open an alternative school for my son, so that neither of us had to make uncomfortable adjustments to the time changes. Our school allowed the children to attend hours that they chose, not forced hours with a controlled curriculum.
During his growing years, I also observed more and more people working odd hours. Night shifts became more frequent in a wider variety of jobs. Family members gradually have ended up with very different schedules which has continually been exacerbated during the time changes that occur twice a year. Apparently, I’ve learned recently, each state in the U.S. has the option of following this pattern of time falling forward and back again. It’s not a federal requirement. And yet, the only states to claim that right are Arizona and Hawaii. How strange is that?
Considering that no one actually likes this pattern of changing the clock to provide more daylight hours, it’s surprising that it still exists. Or is it? The concept of Standard Time was first legally established in 1918. The motivation for this development came in the 1880s in order to establish a reliable schedule for the railroad. This would assist customers using the service, and keep trains from colliding on the tracks. In addition, this increased popularity for train travel and the revenue of the railroads. Four time zones were established across the nation and Canada.
These original zones followed the natural cycle of the sun and took into consideration the fact that it is different in varying parts of this huge land mass we call home. It allowed a valuable synchronization for this new way in which large numbers of people were traveling. The railroad had a huge impact on how far and how frequently people and goods were transported. What followed was the intrusion of the highway system…but that’s for another time.
Over and over again, mankind has fooled around with our relationship to nature by manipulating a wide variety of daily aspects of life. Time is only one of them. This experimentation with our relationship to the natural world creates unforeseen consequences of small minds. In other words, it’s impossible to know all of the potential reactions when humanity messes with nature. We simply don’t know enough…
I’ve been learning more about the details of this subject in the article: “Is Daylight Saving a Public Health Problem?” Founder and President of Save Standard Time, Jay Pea, provides clear information about this situation.
“In the United States, Standard Time was designed to organize modern life around the solar day. Daylight Saving Time came later as a political and economic experiment, shifting the clock one hour forward to create more evening light.
Standard Time keeps us more closely aligned with the natural light-dark cycle. It gives the body more of what it needs most in the morning: natural light to wake up, regulate cortisol, anchor circadian rhythm, support alertness, and help set the stage for better sleep at night.”
“Daylight Saving Time, by contrast, pushes light later into the evening, delaying melatonin, making it harder to fall asleep, and leaving many Americans short on sleep before the day even begins.
Under Daylight Saving Time, Pea said, people can lose sleep “at both ends of the day.” Evening light keeps people awake later, while alarms still force them up before they are biologically ready.”
I find this information truly fascinating. In addition to the fatigue associated with interrupted sleep are the numerous potential health risks including heart disease, obesity, strokes, mood disturbances, anxiety and more. For many years, I’ve had more and more clientele complain about sleep issues. Now, I know there are a variety of suspects in the challenges of health-giving, sound sleep. It’s not a simple subject. And yet, this element of time feels like a meaningful way to provide a solution to a wide variety of people with little effort.
Sleep deprivation is a huge issue in modern times. Children and teenagers aren’t getting enough sleep for their growing needs. Adults are pulled at both ends of the day to start earlier and end later just to get basic lifestyle needs accomplished. Employers are demanding more time outside of office hours, and children are weighed down with heavier homework loads and extra curricular activities to prove their worth. All of this takes time - that precious commodity that gets twisted and turned into a slave to commerce and the continual Go, Go, Go! of modern society.
In 1974, the government experimented with having Daylight Saving Time as a year-round requirement. It was disastrous. It was discontinued only 10 months after it started. So, why is Congress looking at making this change again? A current bill, oddly named the Sunshine Protection Act, is moving forward in the halls of our governmental bodies as you read this article. What most people don’t realize is that this bill is designed to make Daylight Saving Time permanent nationwide.
This manipulation of time has deleterious effects on all of us. Take a closer look. Consider how it feels to bounce back and forth. The Council of State Governments has reported on this issue as recently as March, 2024. In their article, both sides of this challenging situation are defined. For me, as a health professional for over 40 years, I lean strongly towards the clear health benefits versus the value for commerce.
Dr. Karin Johnson, a professor of neurology at UMass Chan Medical School-Baystate, medical director of the Baystate Health Regional Sleep Program in Springfield, Massachusetts, and vice president of Save Standard Time, has a clear perspective on the pros and cons of choosing Daylight Saving Time over Standard Time. She reports:
“The data that is being used to support these claims is data on the time change itself. What they didn’t factor in is what the long-term effects of being on one time versus another,” Johnson said. “Basically, all of the mental health data says that if we can align our bodies more to the sun and not have a circadian rhythm misbalance, we will be better off mental health-wise.”
“It doesn’t affect the population evenly,” Johnson said. “Lower-income families are more likely to have jobs with earlier start times. A lot of our essential workers, construction workers and transportation workers have very early start times. They’re the ones who are going to be impacted by this the most.”
In looking more closely at all of the arguments for and against this manipulation of time, a human construct to begin with, it’s definitely a challenging issue. To me, health and safety (which is definitely an issue with a larger percentage of the population sleep deprived) are the most important elements in forming a decision. Experiment a little with your personal schedule if you can. Make adjustments for consistency in waking and sleeping times when the time changes back and forth. That would require identifying what hour would keep you on Standard Time. I know that’s not possible for everyone, and if you have any control over your schedule perhaps you can give it a try.
See if your life is better with a consistent rhythm. Perhaps, you can get a buy in from your employer to experiment with changes in productivity and efficiency as a result of sleeping and waking consistently in Standard Time. And, then, consider that keeping Standard Time all the time will have a huge impact on the health of our struggling population.