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There are two opinions on Daylight Saving Time: 1) end the madness; 2) I don’t care/it’s fine. Very few people ever say, “You will not mess with my screwed up body clock twice a year!” Daylight Saving Time is basically an annoyance, like it or love it. And we’ve heard for years how the twice-a-year clock jump is bad for our health, bad for our sleep, bad for drivers, bad for teachers, etc. While keeping the same time throughout the year may sound like a good thing, a new study finds it could be bad for your health during the winter months.
… José María Martín-Olalla from the University of Seville finds canceling daylight saving time would lead to more human activity in the early morning hours, before the sun rises, in winter. This can be harmful from a physiological point of view. One of the issues is having to rely more on artificial light while waking up.
… Although the UK has been using DST since 1918, Germany stopped the practice between the end of World War II and 1980. The study shows Germany starts its day a half-hour earlier than its nearby neighbor. This led to many Germans starting their winter mornings in darkness. Moreover, the professor finds morning activity in the UK lined up almost exactly with the winter sunrise. The thought is that canceling Daylight Saving Time would mean people must deal with the impact of dark mornings and distorted sleep rhythms for three months out of the year — instead of twice a year for a couple of days.
Daylight Saving Time ends a week from Sunday at 2am.