The seasonal transition to daylight saving time does more harm to human health than benefits, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, citing a group of sleep scientists.
For years researchers have been bemoaning the biannual change of hours, saying that changing just one hour is linked to a slew of negative health effects, including an increased risk of heart attack and stroke.
But when the US Senate recently passed a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, sleep experts grew worried, as lawmakers said they picked the wrong time.
“When the clocks move forward, our internal clocks do not change but are forced to follow the community clock instead of the sun, much like the perpetual social exhaustion of travel,” explained Muhammad Adil Rishi, a pulmonologist and sleep physician at Indiana University.
Objectors note that one of the big problems with DST is that in winter the sun will rise later and many schoolchildren will go to school in the dark.
To the west, in Indiana’s eastern time zone, for example, the sun won’t rise in winter until around 9 a.m., according to Richie.
“Thus, these children are kept two hours off their biological clock,” he added.
“Too much light in the evening is associated with an increased risk of diabetes and high blood pressure,” Ritchie noted.
Data from other studies showed a negative effect of night light on health, as Dr. Ritchie’s lab published a study indicating that healthy people who slept with moderate lighting throughout the night showed an increase in heart rate during the night and increased insulin resistance the next day compared to people who slept in an empty room. of light.
Richie hopes that sleep specialists can influence the science of perpetual daylight saving time when the US House of Representatives holds public hearings on the bill.
Daylight saving time is the change of official time for a period of several months each year. Official clocks are reset at the beginning of spring, with the hands advancing sixty minutes.