Feeling a bit groggy as you start your workday today? Hundreds of millions of Americans will be a bit less productive this morning, require a bit more coffee, and be a little more grumpy than usual. Just like we were last year at this time, and likely will be again next year unless we change the system.
There are two thoughts on my mind as I struggle to get my motor running today, March 10th, one day after moving my clocks forward one hour to announce the advent of Daylight Savings Time. The first is that we should rename this Daylight Spending Time, as the reasons for subjecting ourselves to this annual suffering are centered primarily on the financial. The second is that today is perhaps the best day to explain the condition of Social Jet Lag that permeates our electric light culture.
I am not an expert on the origins of Daylight Savings Time, but I feel misled by my grade school teachers who said that Daylight Savings Time (DST) is “for the farmers,” as if farmers need us to move the clock so they know when it is okay to feed the cows or start harvesting. I grew up on a farm, and I never once remember my father saying anything like “well, good thing there is DST, so now I get an extra hour of harvest.” When the sun was up, he worked. When it went down, he slept. Clocks were largely irrelevant.
As I now understand it, DST is largely a commercial idea, a business initiative that gets us a little more daylight between clocking out and settling in at home. That “extra hour” meant folks were more likely to stop by and spend a few dollars at the local tavern (or just about any store), and those extra dollars apparently are worth subjecting all of us to biannual jet lag. Or, as it is often called in lighting research circles, Social Jet Lag (SJL).
Our bodies take in signals from the sun to regulate our days into “circadian cycles,” effectively telling us when to rise and when to sleep. When we travel across time zones, we experience Jet Lag as our body tries to acclimate to the “new” local time. If we travel across multiple time zones, Jet Lag is worsened.
Fortunately, our bodies take in light in the new location and gradually, over the course of a few days, correct our rhythms until we are functioning in the new normal. What does this have to do with Daylight Savings Time?
DST is essentially a society-wide self-induced Jet Lag period, and our bodies will need a few days to reorient. So the sun is not actually rising or setting at a different time, we just put a new “artificial” time on top of our days for societal reasons (in this case, businesses wanting more of our money). Our bodies will adjust, but we will suffer in the interim.
Here is why this is important to understand: the Social Jet Lag you are feeling this morning is happening to you nearly every single day, albeit in less painful ways, due to our dependence on electric light and our disconnect from natural light.
Would you like to be more alert this morning, feel more rested? Then you want to abolish Daylight Spending…er, Savings Time.
Would you like to be more alert every morning, feel more rested? Then you want to banish Social Jet Lag by getting your electric light and daily routines in sync with natural light.
Read more about Social Jet Lag and the intersection between light and health HERE.