Permanent Daylight Saving Time is nothing but snake oil
Alarms struck hard the third week of March, as millions of working and school-attending Americans suddenly were forced to wake themselves an hour early, many in darkness. We felt tired, slowed, pained, irritated and impaired. We yearned for our weekend sleep-in, a meager respite before repeating this too-early activity on Monday and onward.
We suffer this agony each March. We endure this sunshine extremism through October, before our return to Standard Time in November lets us again sleep an extra hour every morning through the winter.
And yet, there are laws proposed to extend these awful weeks of cold, dark, forced early awakenings to the entire year. Permanent Daylight Saving Time — rebranded by Sen. Marco Rubio and others as “Sunshine Protection” — is an extension of DST into winter. Supporters assure that we’ll all get used to it. But why would we want to get used to such unhealthy, unsafe unpleasantry? We don’t naturally wake this early on weekends; why lie about the time to force ourselves to wake so early every weekday?
We don’t notice the harm so much in summer, when there’s more daylight to shift around. But we would definitely notice (and regret) if we extend DST into winter. It is not just the clock change that harms. It is waking far earlier than our innate circadian rhythm. It is not seeing sunlight until lunchtime. It is not feeling fully awake until mid-afternoon — or ever! It is sleep deprivation. It is following a false clock.
You would not solve a temperature problem by swapping Fahrenheit and Celsius thermometers, nor should we address unfit schedules by substituting Standard Time with DST. Permanent DST is an unsustainable scam to squeeze a few more million dollars of shopping from us, and it comes at the cost of our sleep, of our mental and physical health. Permanent DST is not an extension of summer. It is not “more daylight.” It is sleep-robbing snake oil.
Clock change is increasingly misunderstood and despised; we will stop the biannual switcheroo soon. We now have two paths:
Suffer permanent DST, realize its disaster of mass sleep deprivation, and restore permanent Standard Time
Skip directly to permanent Standard Time, which will save time, money and lives.
Permanent Standard Time is endorsed by scores of organizations representing millions of scientists, doctors, teachers, parents, community leaders and more, worldwide (including the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, National Safety Council and National PTA). Supporting permanent DST are chambers of commerce and golf associations. Whom do you trust with your family’s health and safety? Tell your federal and state lawmakers: Sunshine doesn’t need protection — sleep does! DST is a dud. Restore the real time, as defined by the sun: permanent Standard Time. And let Americans sleep.