As my students know from our study of circadian rhythms, phase delays (such as today’s change from Daylight Saving Time) produce less disruption than phase advances (such as the Spring forward change in Daylight Saving Time). This week, we can expect statistically fewer cardiac arrests and traffic accidents (which we make up for in the Spring when we switch back).
As my students also know, one of the chief culprits behind our difficulties adjusting to Daylight Saving Time and jet lag is the suprachiasmatic nucleus of the hypothalamus. Just in case you have trouble remembering this structure, you might find this YouTube helpful. Beware, though, this song is a good candidate for what the Germans call an “earworm,” or a song that goes over and over in your head!
The Daylight Saving Time WebExhibit site has some interesting trivia regarding Daylight Saving Time. Here are a couple of my favorites:
- A bombing of two busloads of innocent civilians in Israel was thwarted when the bombers forgot that their home on the West Bank remained on Daylight Saving Time when Israel itself switched back to standard time. As a result, the bombs went off an hour earlier than expected, killing the bombers instead of the intended victims.
- Until 2006, Daylight Saving Time ended before Halloween, but lobbying by the candy industry convinced the government to move the change date to the first Sunday in November. The intent was to give trick-or-treaters more light, thus more safety (pedestrian death rates for children are four times higher on Halloween than on any other day). While well-intentioned, the move has not produced greater safety. Children still wait until dark to go trick-or-treating anyway.
I hope everyone enjoys sleeping in a bit before the effect wears off. Our Australian shepherd is not too interested in clocks, so we are generally awakened at the same time regardless of what the clock says. Still, it’s nice to have a little bit more time to sip coffee and wake up gradually before heading out for that 8 o’clock class!
24 Comments
EricaFinfer · November 1, 2015 at 3:06 pm
I am curious what the rate of adjustment is in regards to Daylight savings. I know personally it takes me a couple of days to feel “normal” again when having time change by an entire hour. Do you adjust by an average of 10-20 minutes per day? That would make sense as it seems it takes about 3-6 days to feel acclimated.
sarahdemarois · November 1, 2015 at 3:55 pm
So interesting! I never thought about the potential that moving our clocks forward or backwards has on our circadian rhythms!
mmontna · November 3, 2015 at 10:45 am
This is really interesting! I had never thought about the repercussions of day lights savings in our everyday lives. You mentioned that you hope everyone takes advantage of sleeping in a bit before the effects wear off; how long does it take our body to adapt to the new circadian rhythm? Since when we move our clocks back an hour, our day becomes a 25 hour day.Does this throw off our circadian rhythms in a negative way, or does it just give us an extra hour to relax? Reading this made me want to look more into DST since I have always been confused on the reasoning behind it. One interesting thing I found was that states can opt out of DST and remain on standard time throughout the year. For example, Hawaii and most of Arizona applied to be exempt from DST.
Thanks,
Maddison Montana
mordanza · November 4, 2015 at 11:30 am
This is really interesting to me, especially with the lack of evidence about the actual energy savings this was intended for. So many other repercussions happened, I’m sure the people who established this system didn’t account for. I went on the daylight saving time website and a couple other consequences popped out:
(1) how there is less crime due to the increased day light
(2) a case where a individual died and the sentence of the landscaper hinged on whether he changed his sprinkler system to daylight saving time.
Also discussed in class how, statistically, there a balance between the start of daylight saving time and the end of it in regards to accidents. Now, this is making me rethink the actual usefulness of daylight saving time as it seems the negative consequences almost balance out the positive one (I say almost because I can’t state whether a loss of a life balances out various crimes of mugging). I truly wonder what would happen if we stopped with the daylight saving system.
AJMatuchniak · November 4, 2015 at 6:16 pm
Although I shouldn’t laugh, I found the first story regarding the bombers interesting in a way because it seems like something that would be put in a comedy show like South Park or The Simpsons.
In today’s class, you talked about how you do not feel that Daylight Savings Time is especially helpful in saving energy. I have always wondered myself whether Daylight Savings Time really does save energy, because besides changing my clock and either getting an extra hour or losing an hour of sleep, I have never really noticed changing my amount of energy usage.
Additionally, I have always been more of a fan of the Spring-forward part of Daylight Savings because I enjoy the concept of lighter-later. It allows a lot more people to continue being social without it being so dark early on. The lighter-earlier part of the Fall-back in Daylight Savings, as we just recently experienced, does not affect me too much because I usually am awake around 8am on weekdays when the sun is already up regardless of whether it is Spring-forward or Fall-back.
camillemansour95 · November 4, 2015 at 7:07 pm
Candy industries lobbying for a change for Daylight Savings Time changing dates is interesting. I would think that before going through all of the trouble of changing a national date, they would have researched more into the psychology of the act of trick-or-treating. I remember as a kid, the time of day on a clock was less important than the amount of sunlight present. Trick or treating was a night time activity in my mind, and my peers’ minds, so we would, of course, wait until it was dark outside. This change occurred in 2006 and being 11, my friends and I had no idea. We took no notice, or advantage of the extra hour of light presented to us. However, it is good to hear that it is possible to change things like this based on the safety of children.
shelbydewberry · November 5, 2015 at 10:53 am
Very interesting! I never knew that the candy industry lobbied to get daylight savings time pushed back–it has been that way as long as I could remember! However, I find it interesting that many children still wait to go trick-or-treating until after dark, that just seems counter intuitive to me. I also was surprised to find that phase delays are less detrimental than phase advances–ill make sure to drive extra carefully when spring forward happens this year!
Pretty sure that song will be stuck in my head forever, but at least ill never forget that the suprachiasmatic nucleus will help me focus!
saraportnoy · November 6, 2015 at 12:52 pm
I’ve never really thought about the impact of Daylight Saving time and how it only started being used about 100 years ago during World War One. I was curious about where it originated and looked it up and it showed that Benjamin Franklin was the person who thought of the whole concept. I’m curious as to why Hawaii and Arizona don’t participate in Daylight Saving. Also, it’s interesting that the candy industry pushed the government to allow Daylight Saving time to occur on the first Sunday in November, instead of before Halloween. At least the safety of trick or treaters is better.
HanaShiozaki · November 6, 2015 at 3:48 pm
Those two facts were quite interesting! The death rates of children being four times higher on Halloween than any other day is surprisingly dramatic and I am going to take that into account if I ever drive on Halloween. It’s interesting to discuss daylight savings times because I really never think too much of it. All my clocks (my iPhone and my laptop) adjust automatically and I have never noticed my body reacting to the time change. I wonder if I am an unusual case? Perhaps it’s because my sleep schedule changes somewhat significantly between weekdays and weekends. What I do notice are the earlier sunsets! Since I don’t notice the hour gain (or loss) much in my body, I much prefer the Spring Forward change because we get more sunlight later in the day. Being from Washington, I experience light skies until about 10pm on the longest days of the summer and there’s nothing I love more than that!
The suprachiasmatic nucleus video was great, although I think it’s already repeating itself in my head!
Sophie Marsh · November 8, 2015 at 2:45 pm
I’ve never thought about the implications of daylight savings time on one’s health and wellbeing. It makes me wonder whether the benefits of changing the clocks is worth the costs? I also found it interesting that while the heart attack occurrences for fall daylights savings is smaller than the amount of heart attacks during spring daylight savings, I imagine there is a heightened level of major depressive disorder with seasonal pattern because of the sudden decrease in daylight that happens in the fall. These past few days I have found myself shocked at how early the sun rises and sets. The discussion of major depressive disorder with seasonal pattern also makes me wonder how that effects the lives of people near the north pole who live for months at a time in light or dark. I imagine there is difficulty managing your circadian rhythms when living in that type of environment.
jennylu18 · November 8, 2015 at 11:07 pm
There is much controversy about the use of daylight savings. I know that it was proposed by Benjamin Franklin in part to save candle usage however, seeing that lights are still being used far past sunset with the convenience of electricity, this reason seems to have lost its validity. Learning that there is an increase of heart attacks during because of one hour less sleep also makes me wonder if the U.S. will continue having daylight savings.
Sarah Morningred · November 8, 2015 at 11:12 pm
The “earworm” video mentioned that Modafinil can be used to treat sleep disorder syndromes. I didn’t know that! The use of this drug is really interesting to me. I have heard that in the military, fighter pilots take the drug to increase their focus, that it approved by the FDA, and has a low potential for addiction. Not that I condone cognitive enhancing drug use for people whom it is not prescribed to, but I’m kind of surprised it isn’t more widely used/abused among college students as an alternative to Adderall and Ritalin.
vinimandyam · November 14, 2015 at 12:21 pm
I think the idea of daylight savings time is a very interesting concept. You mentioned in class whether it truely does help the country save energy or not.
I discovered an article where people are questioning the efficiency of this time change on the California Energy Comission website: http://energy.ca.gov/daylightsaving.html
Also, I have hands on experience with the effects of the travel phase delays you discussed in class. I moved from Boston to California when I was 12 and even though I was too young to understand circadian rhythms, my body was well aware that it preferred the time change going from the east coast to the west as opposed to going from the west to the east!
joylomax · November 19, 2015 at 9:46 am
i wonder what it would take to change the Daylight Savings time. I personally don’t like the switch, and would rather hang with the other states and countries that don’t make the change.. As much as I love the switch in the spring where were get more light in the evening, I personally can’t stand the darkness that comes so quickly in the fall. Where has the day gone? It’s already starting to get dusk around 4-5 in the evening. I think it could be interesting to see how much of the U.S. actually enjoys the time change, and if i would be worth changing. Some of my friends enjoy the cold weather and dark nights, where others like me can’t stand it, we just love our sunshine too much. That would be an interesting study. Thank you for sharing.
kathryngreenup · November 24, 2015 at 10:36 pm
I checked out some of the other trivia on the WebExhibit and found a lot of them interesting. I thought it was strange that Antarctica followed DLS, even thought it makes sense if they have to keep in contact with more developed places. It’s one of those things you don’t think about until someone tells you.
I also really liked that the Amish had something to say about DLS. It’s not something I would consider a modern convenience (more a modern inconvenience) but they still have a problem with it. I guess I find it hard to imagine them being completely isolated from all other civilization to the point that they’re on different time schedules.
Personally, I don’t get why we do DLS. It seems like a pointless political thing that some old men proposed by it hasn’t officially been taken off the books yet. I wonder what people in the future will think looking back on it.
Ariana Altman · November 25, 2015 at 4:29 pm
I found this post really interesting. I was born and raised in Hawaii so I never had to deal with daylight savings until I came to California for college. I honestly had no knowledge of daylight sayings before coming to school on the mainland, because the schools I attended back home never taught us about it. i guess it wasn’t included/or that important in our curriculums. Either way, I personally was in awe when the clock fell back the first time during halloween my freshmen year. I had to look it up because I was so baffled as to what had just happened. I had never really thought about the repercussions that this time change would have on our lives. Mainly being because I’ve never been impacted by it. But not coming to the “mainland” where daylight sayings is a thing, it had definitely made be more conscious as to the possible negatives that daylight savings might have. One question that I have is why do we still have daylight savings? If it was initial used to give farmers more daylight, I personally feel as though this is no longer necessary being we have more advanced farming practices.
emmanishimura96 · November 27, 2015 at 10:42 pm
First I want to say that it is unfortunate that changing daylight savings had no effect on the safety of children during Halloween; had I been apart of the committee attempting to make that change I would have felt certain it would improve the number of accidents on Halloween and been very disappointed when it did not. Overall, cardiac rhythms are very interesting and daylight savings provides us with a nice way to study a nationwide change, but I believe that in this age daylight savings provides no benefit and should not continue.
hannahphelps · February 9, 2016 at 6:50 pm
I found both facts interesting in this article. Firstly, the time affecting the bombers’ plan is horribly ironic and comedic – I am led to believe this situation is probably not the only one to have occurred, and that we probably just are not aware of similar situations happening! Secondly, the contradiction of thinking that it being darker later would increase safety for Trick-or-Treaters is interesting and highlights something important about how we adjust to time changes, regardless of how long that may take our Circadian Rhythms. Due to the tradition of trick-or-treating to be at night, the quantitative time does not matter. We are so reliant on time in our daily lives that we do not give credit to our body’s ability to adjust and adapt to time without its knowledge!
vimorris@calpoly.edu · April 23, 2016 at 2:27 pm
Daylight savings has always been an interesting concept for me to grasp. I assumed that we continued with fall back and spring forward because it has become so ingrained in our society it would take much effort to make any sort of adjustments. However I was surprised to read that was not the case when the candy industry was able to lobby for an alteration around Halloween. I wonder if the next adjustment will be directly related to the health concerns of circadian rhythm phase advancement.
estrickf · May 11, 2016 at 1:28 pm
I am aware that the initial purposes of Daylight savings time were to prevent traffic accidents and act as an eco-friendly move to save energy, however studies have shown that these benefits are cancelled out by the confusion of the time change as well. It seems that people would turn on their house lights an hour earlier, regardless of the time change, so the original purpose is sort of defeated. Because there is strong evidence against the repercussions of Daylight savings time, it seems that we should just do away with it-any overall benefits are cancelled out by the negative effects.
alexandrabush · May 31, 2016 at 1:40 pm
Daylight savings always tends to be more of a hassle. The only thing it is “good” for is saving energy and that is debatable. The intent is for people to only have to use lights at night when there is no outside light, but people still have their lights on all day so we are only theoretically saving energy. Also, there are more deaths when we change times so clearly daylight savings is not helping anyone. I really liked the first trivia you posted because all I can think of is karma and how bad things happen to bad people.
madelinechae · June 1, 2016 at 11:11 am
As funny as those couple of stories were, I am not very surprised. As for the bombing story, it is completely understandable that they mixed up the hours simply because I know it takes me at least 2 weeks to get accustomed to a different timing nonetheless remember that there even was a change of timing. I am also not at all surprised at that these statistics simply because I of all people should know how huge of an impact only one hour less or more of sleep has on my entire day. Lack of sleep seems to affect people like a chain reaction because it leads to irritability or drowsiness which may lead to accidents or regrettable mistakes. I was not actually aware of how immense some of these health issues are, but understanding how vital our circadian rhythms are to our daily function allows me to see that even the slightest phase delays or advances can have a huge influence.
brittanymertzel · October 21, 2016 at 1:20 pm
Safe to say I won’t be forgetting what the suprachiasmatic nucleus does! I love this article about Daylight Savings Time. I always thought it was interesting because some places in the world do not participate in Daylight Savings, and the time differences between places in the world are so crazy for me to think about. I am very happy that Daylight savings is coming up very soon. I am fascinated by your second point of daylight savings being pushed back a week for trick-or-treaters to receive more light! Isn’t it so interesting that time is such a social construct and can even be “changed” as in this case in 2006. One small change of the Daylight Savings date has kept the time as is for a whole extra week before pushing the time back. I will be looking forward for those 8am classes to feel like 9am! Thank you for this.
Amy Edelstein · April 23, 2017 at 12:09 pm
I found this post so interesting, as I am a person who functions best with a good night of sleep. No one ever really thinks about Daylight Savings on a deeper level – it’s just a date that we see in our planners and remember to switch our clocks so that we won’t miss our class in the morning. However, if we really think about it, Daylight Saving time is fascinating! First of all, I find it interesting that not all states participate in this, which then makes me wonder whether or not people in those states strongly differ in their sleep cycles compared to people in states like California, where Daylight Savings occurs every year. Does that one yearly shift strongly affect our circadian rhythm on a permeant level? This is an interesting question that I would like to explore. Also, the statement about the bombing in Israel sparked something in my mind, as I was born in Israel and lived there for half of my life. I never considered how something so simple, like switching our clocks back ONE hour, can save a life (or multiple).