Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey brain Stuff, Learn Voga Bam. Here. There's a common
Speaker 1: consensus that changing the clocks back and forth twice a
Speaker 1: year is annoying, and the U. S. Government decided to
Speaker 1: do something about it. On March fift the Senate unanimously
Speaker 1: passed a bill to make daylight savings time permanent across
Speaker 1: the country. As of this recording, the bill still needs
Speaker 1: to pass in the House of Representatives and be signed
Speaker 1: by President Joe Biden. While this would eliminate the irritating
Speaker 1: aspect of changing clocks back and forth, many scientists, public
Speaker 1: health experts, and members of the public are wondering whether
Speaker 1: it would be a good thing overall, and so today
Speaker 1: let's look at the pros and cons. Okay, Daylight savings
Speaker 1: time is the practice of advancing the clock one hour
Speaker 1: ahead of standard time in the spring and summer months
Speaker 1: so that people get to experience more daylight in the
Speaker 1: evening during those months. In the United States, daylight savings
Speaker 1: time is observed between the second Sunday in March and
Speaker 1: the first Sunday in November. The policy seems simple. Most
Speaker 1: clocks are fairly easy to adjust, but our bodies are
Speaker 1: more complicated than most clocks. For the article, this episode
Speaker 1: is based on How Stuff Works, spoke with Dr Elizabeth Klerman,
Speaker 1: a professor of neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard
Speaker 1: Medical School. She explained that humans have three different clocks
Speaker 1: that our lives and bodies must adhere to. She said,
Speaker 1: one is local clock time, a social clock, what's on
Speaker 1: your watch on your computer. The second is sun time,
Speaker 1: when the sun goes up and when the sun goes down.
Speaker 1: And the third is biological time. It's what time of
Speaker 1: day your body clock thinks it is. Our bodies naturally
Speaker 1: follow sun time, not social time, and therefore, when we
Speaker 1: switch from standard time to daylight savings, we feel groggy
Speaker 1: and tired. The implementation of daylight savings every year is
Speaker 1: like waking up one time zoned to the east. We
Speaker 1: feel jet lagged. A. Klerman said, daylight savings time shifts
Speaker 1: the social clock, but not the sun clock or the
Speaker 1: body clock. Statistics back up the problem of shifting between
Speaker 1: the two. Report on cardiovascular events found that the Monday
Speaker 1: following the shift to daylight savings is associated with a
Speaker 1: two increase in heart attacks, and a different study spanning
Speaker 1: thirty years of Australian data found that the rate of
Speaker 1: suicides and men with bipolar disorders increased in the weeks
Speaker 1: following daylight savings. Another study found that there are more
Speaker 1: workplace injuries and of a more severe nature on the
Speaker 1: mondays following the daylight savings shift, and yet another noted
Speaker 1: that in the seven days following time changes, safety related
Speaker 1: incidents increased by four point two percent in the spring
Speaker 1: and eight point eight percent in the fall. And another
Speaker 1: study showed that the risk of little car crashes increases
Speaker 1: by six percent in the days following daylight savings, though
Speaker 1: overall accidents during daylight savings time tend to decrease. The
Speaker 1: U s Department of Transportation cites three reasons for daylight
Speaker 1: savings time, energy savings, prevention of traffic injuries and death,
Speaker 1: and crime reduction. All three have been studied before. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, the Department of Energy found that
Speaker 1: the extra four weeks of daylight savings time, which were
Speaker 1: added in two thousand seven, had saved zero point five
Speaker 1: percent in total electricity per day. This might not seem
Speaker 1: like much, but the Department of Energy noted that this
Speaker 1: came out to a savings of quote one point three
Speaker 1: billion kilowatt hours, or the amount of electricity used by
Speaker 1: more than a hundred thousand households for an entire year.
Speaker 1: However that number may be high. Review found the savings
Speaker 1: to be around zero point three though in the grand scheme,
Speaker 1: still not shabby. As far as traffic it goes, some
Speaker 1: studies have cited fewer fatal car crashes during daylight savings
Speaker 1: because of the extra daylight during the evening rush hour.
Speaker 1: Study found an eight drop in pedestrian related crashes and
Speaker 1: a six to ten percent drop in car crashes in
Speaker 1: the weeks following the implementation of daylight savings. Regarding crime,
Speaker 1: one study showed that robberies were reduced overall by seven
Speaker 1: percent during daylight savings time and by whopping during the
Speaker 1: extra daylight in the evening. Businesses that operate outdoors may
Speaker 1: benefit from permanent daylight savings time. For example, farmers or
Speaker 1: lawn workers who start work at eight am benefit during
Speaker 1: daylight savings from the slightly cooler morning temperature of standard
Speaker 1: times seven am, and tourists looking to get the most
Speaker 1: out of their days may be encouraged by that extra
Speaker 1: hour of evening sunlight, giving the travel industry a boost.
Speaker 1: But since the Senate passed that permanent Daylight Savings Time bill,
Speaker 1: several groups have come out against it, including the American
Speaker 1: Academy of Sleep Medicine, the National Safety Council, and the
Speaker 1: National Parent Teacher Association. They say that permanent standard time
Speaker 1: is actually better for the body. The Clerman would agree.
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, she co authored a paper published in
Speaker 1: Frontiers and Physiology that laid out evidence of how daylight
Speaker 1: savings time harms our health. She said, the misconception people
Speaker 1: have is that there's more light. There's no more light,
Speaker 1: it's just shifted. If you're an evening person and there's
Speaker 1: more light at night, it will shift your body clock later.
Speaker 1: So it's going to make life worse for later people
Speaker 1: because they still have to wake up earlier for clock time.
Speaker 1: All those later people who like it are actually getting
Speaker 1: less sleep. The impacts aren't just happening in the week
Speaker 1: following the springtime change either, Clerman said, it's about what's
Speaker 1: happening over the entire season. There's misalignment between the body
Speaker 1: clock and clock time because it's one time zone different.
Speaker 1: There's also insufficient sleep. Both of those have shown to
Speaker 1: have adverse effects on performance, cardiovascular disease, errors, and accidents,
Speaker 1: and in a statement in one the board chair of
Speaker 1: the National Sleep Foundation, Dr Rick Bogan, said a switching
Speaker 1: to permanent standard time would better align our bodies to
Speaker 1: daily sunrise and sunset, which influences the natural sleep wake
Speaker 1: cycles also called circadian rhythm. He pointed to a poll
Speaker 1: showing that s Americans don't think they're sleep routines or
Speaker 1: moods are affected by time changes, though they are. He continued,
Speaker 1: we're seeing gaps between what the public thinks and both
Speaker 1: published research and real world observations of the clock changes
Speaker 1: effects on health. The change to permanent daylight savings time
Speaker 1: in the United States has been tried before, the first
Speaker 1: time for several months during World War One. It was
Speaker 1: adopted again during World War Two to conserve fuel and
Speaker 1: was officially known as war time. When polled, only seventeen
Speaker 1: percent of Americans wanted to stick with war time once
Speaker 1: the war was over, so it was stopped in nineteen five.
Speaker 1: The third instance was during the energy crisis between nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy four and nineteen seventy five. This time it was
Speaker 1: abandoned because children were tragically hit by vehicles during the
Speaker 1: dark morning hours while waiting for the school bus. In
Speaker 1: some states, the sun didn't rise until nine am during
Speaker 1: daylight savings time. After nine months of permanent daylight savings,
Speaker 1: the government ended it. Where Americans stand on the issue
Speaker 1: today depends on which survey you look at. According to
Speaker 1: Associated Press poll, only percent of Americans liked to switch
Speaker 1: back and forth wanted permanent standard time, and thirty two
Speaker 1: percent wanted permanent daylight savings. However, in CBS News poll,
Speaker 1: the leading preference was to switch, with permanent either coming
Speaker 1: in about equal. Today's episode is based on the article
Speaker 1: should the US move to permanent daylight savings time? On
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com written by Alison Troutner. Brain
Speaker 1: Stuff is production of I heart Radio in partnership with
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com, and it's produced by Tyler Clang.
Speaker 1: Four more podcasts from my heart Radio visit the i
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.