What effect does daylight saving time actually have on the human body?

Daylight saving time - something most Americans have to deal with, although most people don’t really understand why. In the spring, it means having to wake up one hour earlier than we’re used to. In the fall, it’s absence means getting to sleep in for a bit, but having to see the sun set at 4 pm every day. These effects are something easily observable each year, but what effects does daylight saving time have that might not be as obvious, but are still significant for our body?

The purpose of daylight saving time is essentially to “add” an extra our of daylight in the evening during the warmer months. Although this has several benefits such as reducing the amount of vehicle collisions during eveningtime, as you can probably imagine, messing with our body’s natural sleep and wake schedule and how it aligns with the presence of sunlight can have some adverse effects on our health. According to an article published in the Journal of Biological Rhythms, most of the problems caused by daylight saving time stems from the fact that it disrupts the relationship between humans’ “social clock” and the “sun clock”. Essentially, the time that our brains perceive it to be is not the same as the actual time, as dictated by the sun. 

So what issues does this biological clock disturbance actually cause? Unsurprisingly, daylight saving time and the increased exposure to evening sunlight that comes with it has been shown to cause sleep deprivation and disruption of circadian rhythms, which can further increase the risk of other health problems such as heart disease and mental health disorders, according to an article published in PLOS Computational Biology. In fact, these effects can be seen immediately - the study discussed in the article shows that immune-related diseases increase in just the first week following the annual implementation of daylight saving time. 

So what can be done to resolve this issue? Well, if the problem is annual daylight saving time, the clear answer would be to … get rid of the problem. However, America is not anywhere close to abolishing daylight saving time. In fact, the U.S. Senate recently passed the “Sunshine Protection Act”, which seeks to implement permanent daylight saving time, instead of switching back and forth between daylight saving time and standard time every year. Although permanently residing in DST would eliminate the rough transition between the two, it still will not be ideal for our bodies and our health, according to science.