![]() ![]() Morning light also boosts mood – light boxes simulating natural light are prescribed for morning use to treat seasonal affective disorder.Īlthough the exact reasons why light activates us and benefits our mood are not yet known, this may be due to light’s effects on increasing levels of cortisol, a hormone that modulates the stress response or the effect of light on the amygdala, a part of the brain involved in emotions.Īdolescents also may be chronically sleep deprived due to school, sports and social activities. Morning light is essential for helping to set the body’s natural rhythms: It wakes us up and improves alertness. In contrast, during daylight saving time from March until November, the clock change resulting from daylight saving time causes natural light to be present one hour later in the morning and one hour later in the evening according to clock time. Standard time most closely approximates natural light, with the sun directly overhead at or near noon. However, the two time shifts – jolting as they may be – are not equal. The strong case for permanent standard timeĪmericans are split on whether they prefer permanent daylight saving time or permanent standard time. It’s become clear to me and many of my colleagues that the transition to daylight saving time each spring affects health immediately after the clock change and also for the nearly eight months that Americans remain on daylight saving time. I’ve studied the pros and cons of these twice-annual rituals for more than five years as a professor of neurology and pediatrics and the director of Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s sleep division. In contrast, the fall transition back to standard time is not associated with these health effects, as my co-authors and I noted in a 2020 commentary. Researchers are discovering that “springing ahead” each March is connected with serious negative health effects, including an uptick in heart attacks and teen sleep deprivation. And nearly two-thirds would like to eliminate them completely, compared to 21% who aren’t sure and 16% who would like to keep moving their clocks back and forth.īut the effects go beyond simple inconvenience. ![]() prepare to set their clocks ahead one hour on Sunday, March 12, 2023, I find myself bracing for the annual ritual of media stories about the disruptions to daily routines caused by switching from standard time to daylight saving time.Ībout one-third of Americans say they don’t look forward to these twice-yearly time changes.
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