Your brain has a body clock.
It helps you time your day and make sure the right things are happening in your body at the right time, including heart function, metabolic processes, hormonal fluctuations, and sleep.
But for most of us, that body clock runs slightly longer than 24 hours.
Luckily, the sun helps us by sending signals to special receptors in our eyes.
Every morning, sunlight resets our body clock and “brings” us back into sync with the 24 hours a day.
And after the sun goes down, the lack of sunlight causes our bodies to produce hormones like melatonin that promote sleep.
Just as sunlight in the morning speeds up our body clock, light from a light source that comes too late in the evening can conversely ‘slow down’ our body clock.
This can interfere with our ability to sleep.
When time changes to daylight saving time every spring, we suddenly disrupt this important connection between our brains and the sun. Here’s why:
Our body clocks evolved to align with sunrise, sunset, and the 24 hours of the day.
Similarly, the clocks we developed to schedule our days were devised to align with the 24 hours of the sun.
If you’re observing standard time, noon is generally when the sun is at its highest point. Let’s call it solar noon.
For most of us, our watches and cell phone clocks determine how we spend most of our lives: when we wake up, when we go to work, and when we go to bed.
When we switch to daylight saving time every March, our daily schedule shifts by an hour.
Notice that we now wake up in the dark and finish work with more sunlight remaining during the day.
But the sun doesn’t move. Solar noon is synchronized with your body clock and is the same time as the previous day. Now your daily schedule and solar noon are out of sync.
Unfortunately, the brain’s internal clock cannot adjust as quickly as a clock. It will take at least a day for her biological clock to adjust to her hourly time change. Also, it may take longer for some people.
One of the big problems with changing to daylight saving time is that it disrupts your sleep. Your body is not yet ready to fall asleep at your normal bedtime. He goes to bed an hour earlier.
And in the morning, your body also seeks its previous wake-up time. But the alarm clock will wake you up an hour earlier than him so you can get to work on time. Now you are disrupting sleep on both ends.
This sudden one-hour shift every spring has been linked to an increase in heart attacks and strokes. Car accidents and other accidents are also on the rise.
There is also cumulative damage caused by misaligned circadian rhythms. This is what would happen if daylight saving time remained all year round.
In the Northern Hemisphere, the summer solstice, which occurs around June 21st, is the longest day of the year. Some places, such as Washington, DC, can have nearly 15 hours of daylight.
It may feel good to soak up an extra hour of sunlight after work, but when it’s closer to bedtime and the sun sets later, it can delay the secretion of sleep hormones and slow down your body’s internal clock. .
Even though you may be sleep-deprived, the early morning sun will give you a little “pull back” during the summer.
But let’s imagine if daylight saving time were made permanent, as has been proposed. Six months later, on December 21, the shortest day of the year, another problem will arise.
Washington, DC receives just over 9 hours of daylight.
If you wake up in the dark, the sun will not rise until you are well awake and already at work.
You will have already been awake for many hours before the sun rises, so your ability to “turn” your clock back to its original position is less.
If your body clock isn’t sufficiently “pulled”, it won’t be able to reset itself.
This can cause your body clock to stay a little longer than 24 hours and get out of sync with the solar day.
As the days go by, extra minutes can accumulate. Over time, your body clock and the real world clock drift apart.
As a result, Murrow says, circadian rhythms become disrupted, creating a mismatch between “our schedule of when to wake up and what our external environment is asking us to do, like stay in bed and sleep because it’s dark outside.” .
As a result, experts say spending year-round summer time can increase your risk of seasonal depression during the winter. Experts also say that disrupted circadian rhythms can affect the production of important hormones such as melatonin.
Being chronically out of sync with your body clock increases your risk of sleep deprivation, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, mood disorders, and even certain types of cancer.
Charles Zeisler, director of sleep and circadian disorders at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, said melatonin has tumor growth inhibitory properties and can slow the spread of cancer.
But what if we adopted a standard time all year round? Experts say it could eliminate the short-term health problems (and frustrations) caused by adjusting clocks twice a year.
More importantly, our body clock remains in sync with the solar day.
Better circadian rhythm regulation may reduce the risk of many long-term health problems.
Circadian rhythm and sleep experts say there’s a strong biological basis for maintaining standard hours throughout the year. Changing your clock doesn’t change the overall amount of daylight per day. With a permanent standard time, at least you can get light at the right times to maintain optimal health.
