March 27, 2018

PUBLISHER’S CORNER

By Eloise Graham

Daylight Savings Time: To Change or Not to Change

At the time of this writing, we are one week into Daylight Savings Time. How is everyone’s sleep going? There seems to be a lot of controversy about having to change clocks and pill taking routines. Have any of you been talking about this? I have heard that daylight savings time was implemented to help the farmers so that they would have an extra hour in the evening. I have yet to meet a farmer that says the time change helps him. They work in the field during daylight hours set by sunshine, not a clock.

I started wondering about how all of this came to be. Did you know that on April 30 of this year, daylight savings time will be 102 years old? Germany, during World War I was the first country to implement the time change. From there it spread across Europe. However, it was usually called “summer time” and was from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October. There are records of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada having changed to daylight savings time in 1908, but the trend did not go nationwide like it did in Germany 8 years later. Many countries phased out of DST after World War II. Then the oil embargo in October of 1973 brought about a renaissance of DST. By 1976 most European countries had returned to changing their clocks twice a year. Now, according to timeanddate.com, only 40 percent of the world’s countries go to daylight savings time. [My take on that; 60 percent of the world shows some intelligence.] The article goes on to say that changing the clocks does NOT create an extra hour of sunlight. It does make the evening hours light longer with the desire for people to get outdoors and not become sedentary. [How is that working for us? As a nation, we sit around more than we did 100 years ago.

The article goes on to say that no energy is saved. Perhaps when it was first introduced there was a savings of energy. The use of artificial light in the evening was reduced, saving some resources. But in our society today, with its use of computers, TV screens, air conditioners, etc. there is no savings. In fact, in 2006 when Indiana decided to introduce DST, a study found that energy use was increased in the state.

One thing I think about is the health issue of changing the hour. It seems to me there have been countless studies about sleep deprivation. Our circadian clocks [body clocks] are interrupted. We are told to go to sleep and wake up about the same tme every day. But twice a year, we have to change that pattern. For some people, time change can have serious consequences. Studies show that at the onset of daylight savings time there are more car accidents, workplace injuries, heart attacks, miscarriages and suicide. In the fall, when we get that “extra” hour of sleep, suddenly the evenings get dark so quickly that depression is on the rise.

It is hard to determine the exact economic cost of collective tiredness caused by DST, but it has been found that there is decreased productivity in the fall. The one positive outcome that I saw from these studies is that there is a 7 percent decrease in robberies for a couple of weeks in the spring.

My personal take, if you haven’t guessed by now, is that we should leave the time zones alone. Pick a time and stick to it. My preference would be standard time. I like my mornings to be light. But I would be willing to forgo the early sunrise if I didn’t have to change sleep habits and my clocks twice a year.

Filed Under: History

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