End of summer time? “Rip off the band-aid,” urges the researcher

Sleep researchers in the UK are calling for the abolition of daylight saving time due to the impact it has on the human body.

A statement published Wednesday in the Journal of Sleep Research said the evidence reviewed found that the March change, which moved clocks forward by an hour, “may negatively impact sleep regulation.”

Prof Malcolm von Schantz, one of the researchers at the British Sleep Society, said abolishing time changes and maintaining British Standard Time in the UK – when clocks go back an hour – would bring additional benefits.

“What is really important is to avoid switching to daylight saving time (DST) all year round as this could have significant consequences for both physical and mental health. It would probably worsen the occurrence of winter depression, for example,” he said.

He added that people would see improvements in sleep and circadian rhythms – defined by the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences as the physical, mental and behavioral changes an organism experiences over a 24-hour period.

The push to eliminate daylight saving time and move to a fixed time year-round is not new.

In fact, this has been seen in several countries, including Canada, with the province of Quebec just announcing on Tuesday that it would begin deliberations on whether to end the time change.

Michael Antle, a psychology professor at the University of Calgary, told Global News that the time change was created in part to allow more time in the evenings.

“The idea was to give us a little more free time in the evenings when we have really long days in the summer,” he said.

He said it was also used to save energy during the war in the early 1900s. By staggering work schedules, employers would only have to turn on the light bulbs when employees were almost done with their shift.

With various energy-saving lamps, this is no longer necessary, and since there is less need for an extra hour in the evening, Antle says further studies show the negative effects.

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“You've caused your internal clock, your body clock, to be out of sync with your circadian rhythm and your work schedule, and you're forcing people to get up and go to bed and go to work and go to school an hour earlier than they are used to.”

Time already stands still in some provinces and territories, with Saskatchewan setting central standard time year-round, while Yukon switched to its own standard time in 2020.

Alberta held a referendum on a change in 2021, but it was defeated. A spokesperson for Service Alberta told Global News they will not revisit the issue at this time but will monitor the impact as other jurisdictions make their own decisions.

Manitoba said it would also monitor developments but would evaluate the “best possible options.”

Others have passed legislation to make a change and make daylight saving time permanent, including British Columbia and Ontario, although they are relying on neighboring jurisdictions, including the United States, to also make changes before actually moving forward.

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Roger Godbout, a clinical psychologist at the sleep laboratory at Riviere-des-Prairies Mental Health Hospital in Montreal, told Global News that people lose almost an hour of sleep during daylight saving time. He said this is because exposure to light later in the day has a stimulating effect that can make it difficult to fall asleep at night.

He said it would be more beneficial for health and sleep to permanently set the amount of time the clocks go back and give us more light in the morning.

“It is the morning light that is most important for our mental and physical balance,” Godbout said.

Studies have shown negative effects of annual switching, including cardiovascular problems.

A 2019 report published in the Journal of Clinical Medicine analyzed seven studies with more than 100,000 participants. It was found that there was an increased risk of heart attack in the weeks following the daylight saving time change in spring and fall.

A 2016 nationwide study in Finland – published in the journal Sleep Medicine – showed that hospitalizations due to stroke increased in the first two days after the switch.

The statement from British researchers also said that most of the country lies in the same time zone and therefore sees later sunrises and later sunsets throughout the year. The time zone border with Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom

Canada may prove more difficult due to its multiple time zones.

In the case of Ontario, for example, the province told Global News that a change without Quebec or New York would mean “disruptions to commerce, stock markets and broadcasting.”

But Rebecca Robillard, co-chair of the Canadian Sleep Research Consortium, says provinces should simply switch to standard time rather than wait for economic or similar reasons.

1:22
Can summer time be set permanently?

“It's really kind of a no-brainer what we want to put forward first,” she said. “There are a few administrative complications between certain provinces and there are disagreements across the country with people who made the change and voted and listened to the public's preferences and, most importantly, the science, who decided to protect their health .”

She hopes Quebec's move could also set a precedent for other provinces to take their own steps rather than wait.

Jason Ellis, professor of sleep science at Northumbria University and colleague of Schantz, said now was the time to act.

“We don’t have that much landmass in the UK so we’re really dealing with a change, so of course from my perspective we’re ripping the band-aid off,” he said.

— with files from Saba Aziz and Uday Rana of Global News

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