WEBVTT - Should the U.S. Switch to Permanent Daylight Savings Time? 0:00:01.800 --> 0:00:04.320 Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio. 0:00:06.720 --> 0:00:10.960 Hey brain Stuff, Learn Voga Bam. Here. There's a common 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:14.159 consensus that changing the clocks back and forth twice a 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:17.880 year is annoying, and the U. S. Government decided to 0:00:17.920 --> 0:00:22.079 do something about it. On March fift the Senate unanimously 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:25.599 passed a bill to make daylight savings time permanent across 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:28.640 the country. As of this recording, the bill still needs 0:00:28.640 --> 0:00:30.680 to pass in the House of Representatives and be signed 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:35.520 by President Joe Biden. While this would eliminate the irritating 0:00:35.560 --> 0:00:39.400 aspect of changing clocks back and forth, many scientists, public 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:42.680 health experts, and members of the public are wondering whether 0:00:42.720 --> 0:00:45.959 it would be a good thing overall, and so today 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:51.360 let's look at the pros and cons. Okay, Daylight savings 0:00:51.400 --> 0:00:53.920 time is the practice of advancing the clock one hour 0:00:54.040 --> 0:00:57.080 ahead of standard time in the spring and summer months 0:00:57.280 --> 0:00:59.600 so that people get to experience more daylight in the 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:03.920 evening during those months. In the United States, daylight savings 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:06.480 time is observed between the second Sunday in March and 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:11.080 the first Sunday in November. The policy seems simple. Most 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:14.360 clocks are fairly easy to adjust, but our bodies are 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:18.840 more complicated than most clocks. For the article, this episode 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:21.760 is based on How Stuff Works, spoke with Dr Elizabeth Klerman, 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:25.199 a professor of neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:29.760 Medical School. She explained that humans have three different clocks 0:01:29.760 --> 0:01:33.160 that our lives and bodies must adhere to. She said, 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:36.959 one is local clock time, a social clock, what's on 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:40.520 your watch on your computer. The second is sun time, 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:43.000 when the sun goes up and when the sun goes down. 0:01:43.560 --> 0:01:46.480 And the third is biological time. It's what time of 0:01:46.560 --> 0:01:51.400 day your body clock thinks it is. Our bodies naturally 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:55.040 follow sun time, not social time, and therefore, when we 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:58.920 switch from standard time to daylight savings, we feel groggy 0:01:59.000 --> 0:02:03.040 and tired. The implementation of daylight savings every year is 0:02:03.160 --> 0:02:05.800 like waking up one time zoned to the east. We 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:10.280 feel jet lagged. A. Klerman said, daylight savings time shifts 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:12.840 the social clock, but not the sun clock or the 0:02:12.880 --> 0:02:17.959 body clock. Statistics back up the problem of shifting between 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:22.760 the two. Report on cardiovascular events found that the Monday 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:25.720 following the shift to daylight savings is associated with a 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:30.440 two increase in heart attacks, and a different study spanning 0:02:30.480 --> 0:02:33.120 thirty years of Australian data found that the rate of 0:02:33.160 --> 0:02:36.840 suicides and men with bipolar disorders increased in the weeks 0:02:36.880 --> 0:02:41.600 following daylight savings. Another study found that there are more 0:02:41.639 --> 0:02:44.520 workplace injuries and of a more severe nature on the 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:48.519 mondays following the daylight savings shift, and yet another noted 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.880 that in the seven days following time changes, safety related 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:54.760 incidents increased by four point two percent in the spring 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:58.320 and eight point eight percent in the fall. And another 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:01.839 study showed that the risk of little car crashes increases 0:03:01.880 --> 0:03:05.240 by six percent in the days following daylight savings, though 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:10.320 overall accidents during daylight savings time tend to decrease. The 0:03:10.400 --> 0:03:13.680 U s Department of Transportation cites three reasons for daylight 0:03:13.720 --> 0:03:17.600 savings time, energy savings, prevention of traffic injuries and death, 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:23.120 and crime reduction. All three have been studied before. In 0:03:23.200 --> 0:03:25.320 two thousand and eight, the Department of Energy found that 0:03:25.360 --> 0:03:27.880 the extra four weeks of daylight savings time, which were 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:31.119 added in two thousand seven, had saved zero point five 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:35.240 percent in total electricity per day. This might not seem 0:03:35.280 --> 0:03:37.760 like much, but the Department of Energy noted that this 0:03:37.840 --> 0:03:40.760 came out to a savings of quote one point three 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:44.720 billion kilowatt hours, or the amount of electricity used by 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:47.640 more than a hundred thousand households for an entire year. 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:53.200 However that number may be high. Review found the savings 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:56.760 to be around zero point three though in the grand scheme, 0:03:56.880 --> 0:04:01.080 still not shabby. As far as traffic it goes, some 0:04:01.120 --> 0:04:04.520 studies have cited fewer fatal car crashes during daylight savings 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:07.560 because of the extra daylight during the evening rush hour. 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:13.600 Study found an eight drop in pedestrian related crashes and 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:16.120 a six to ten percent drop in car crashes in 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:20.719 the weeks following the implementation of daylight savings. Regarding crime, 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:24.560 one study showed that robberies were reduced overall by seven 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:29.359 percent during daylight savings time and by whopping during the 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:34.080 extra daylight in the evening. Businesses that operate outdoors may 0:04:34.160 --> 0:04:38.400 benefit from permanent daylight savings time. For example, farmers or 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:41.720 lawn workers who start work at eight am benefit during 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:45.920 daylight savings from the slightly cooler morning temperature of standard 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:49.640 times seven am, and tourists looking to get the most 0:04:49.640 --> 0:04:52.359 out of their days may be encouraged by that extra 0:04:52.440 --> 0:04:55.360 hour of evening sunlight, giving the travel industry a boost. 0:04:56.760 --> 0:05:00.480 But since the Senate passed that permanent Daylight Savings Time bill, 0:05:00.880 --> 0:05:04.039 several groups have come out against it, including the American 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:07.360 Academy of Sleep Medicine, the National Safety Council, and the 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:12.200 National Parent Teacher Association. They say that permanent standard time 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:16.760 is actually better for the body. The Clerman would agree. 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:20.200 In twenty nineteen, she co authored a paper published in 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:23.640 Frontiers and Physiology that laid out evidence of how daylight 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:28.559 savings time harms our health. She said, the misconception people 0:05:28.640 --> 0:05:31.839 have is that there's more light. There's no more light, 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:35.280 it's just shifted. If you're an evening person and there's 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:38.159 more light at night, it will shift your body clock later. 0:05:38.800 --> 0:05:41.320 So it's going to make life worse for later people 0:05:41.360 --> 0:05:44.200 because they still have to wake up earlier for clock time. 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.360 All those later people who like it are actually getting 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:51.640 less sleep. The impacts aren't just happening in the week 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:56.240 following the springtime change either, Clerman said, it's about what's 0:05:56.279 --> 0:06:00.360 happening over the entire season. There's misalignment between the body 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:03.120 clock and clock time because it's one time zone different. 0:06:03.680 --> 0:06:07.080 There's also insufficient sleep. Both of those have shown to 0:06:07.120 --> 0:06:11.800 have adverse effects on performance, cardiovascular disease, errors, and accidents, 0:06:13.120 --> 0:06:16.320 and in a statement in one the board chair of 0:06:16.360 --> 0:06:20.120 the National Sleep Foundation, Dr Rick Bogan, said a switching 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.000 to permanent standard time would better align our bodies to 0:06:23.200 --> 0:06:27.200 daily sunrise and sunset, which influences the natural sleep wake 0:06:27.240 --> 0:06:31.880 cycles also called circadian rhythm. He pointed to a poll 0:06:31.920 --> 0:06:35.760 showing that s Americans don't think they're sleep routines or 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:40.120 moods are affected by time changes, though they are. He continued, 0:06:40.560 --> 0:06:43.800 we're seeing gaps between what the public thinks and both 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:47.640 published research and real world observations of the clock changes 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:52.240 effects on health. The change to permanent daylight savings time 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.279 in the United States has been tried before, the first 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:58.400 time for several months during World War One. It was 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.479 adopted again during World War Two to conserve fuel and 0:07:01.560 --> 0:07:05.880 was officially known as war time. When polled, only seventeen 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:08.480 percent of Americans wanted to stick with war time once 0:07:08.520 --> 0:07:11.280 the war was over, so it was stopped in nineteen five. 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:15.480 The third instance was during the energy crisis between nineteen 0:07:15.480 --> 0:07:18.880 seventy four and nineteen seventy five. This time it was 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:22.440 abandoned because children were tragically hit by vehicles during the 0:07:22.480 --> 0:07:25.680 dark morning hours while waiting for the school bus. In 0:07:25.720 --> 0:07:28.400 some states, the sun didn't rise until nine am during 0:07:28.440 --> 0:07:32.920 daylight savings time. After nine months of permanent daylight savings, 0:07:32.960 --> 0:07:36.960 the government ended it. Where Americans stand on the issue 0:07:36.960 --> 0:07:40.360 today depends on which survey you look at. According to 0:07:40.360 --> 0:07:45.080 Associated Press poll, only percent of Americans liked to switch 0:07:45.080 --> 0:07:49.720 back and forth wanted permanent standard time, and thirty two 0:07:49.720 --> 0:07:55.440 percent wanted permanent daylight savings. However, in CBS News poll, 0:07:55.800 --> 0:08:00.840 the leading preference was to switch, with permanent either coming 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:08.640 in about equal. Today's episode is based on the article 0:08:08.800 --> 0:08:11.600 should the US move to permanent daylight savings time? On 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:14.720 how stuff works dot com written by Alison Troutner. Brain 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:16.800 Stuff is production of I heart Radio in partnership with 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:19.280 how stuff works dot com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang. 0:08:19.920 --> 0:08:22.280 Four more podcasts from my heart Radio visit the i 0:08:22.320 --> 0:08:25.080 heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:26.000 your favorite shows.