Victory-Cigar-Congress-Passes-DST
Source: public domain
Three years ago, I published a blog post saying, “Today, there are calls for keeping Daylight Saving Time throughout the year.” Much of that opinion came from worries that tinkering with time has detrimental effects on the body because it confuses the body clock‘s sensitivity to daylight and melatonin secretions. It does confuse the pineal gland but not enough to destabilize the mind or body.
A more recent Psychology Today post by Kevin Bennett raises a recent bill approved by the U.S. Senate to make daylight saving time permanent. Called the “Sunshine Protection Act,” it professes that a brighter afternoon boosts economic activity and diminishes crime. In addition, it supposedly would reduce seasonal depression.
There may be truth in that. But as Bennett points out, “In the days and weeks that follow twice-a-year clock changes, researchers have observed a spike in car accidents and heart attacks.” I would add that there has been a great deal of research agreeing that Daylight Saving Time provides children with more outdoor playtime and vitamin D, and, compared with Standard Time (DST), there are fewer reported heart attacks, strokes, or car accidents, or reported cases of depression. But DST has been with us for 106 years, before the onslaught of cars and their accidents and statistics on depression. That makes me wonder how the research data gives any conclusion on the matter of car accidents and depression, which are seasonal. Logical reasoning suggests that late afternoon light helps keep us emotionally healthy; however, I also wonder why flying across a single time zone has no next-day effect on the body clock.
Samuel P. Avery, engraver, “Universal Dial Plate or Times of All Nations,” in Gleason’s Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion (Boston), June 25, 1853, 416
Source: public domain
We forget that before the U.S. Civil War, clocks were set to noon by where the sun appeared highest. If it were noon in Washington, D.C., the time in New York would have been 12:12 pm, because the sun had been highest in New York 12 minutes earlier. All across the country, noon would have been calibrated to the sun’s position in the sky, so Albany, New York’s noon happened two minutes after New York City’s. There were no longitudinal time zones. Every city across the continent had its own noon.
One can only imagine the trouble that time scheme caused for expanding rail lines. It was still an era when time-balls fell from towers to mark noon as a calibration instant for local time. Practically, it was a good idea. You could always, except on cloudy days, estimate the times during daylight by looking at the sun and sensing time passing through the day. That’s possibly why our analog clocks have 12 at the top of their faces. There was no precision of course, but for most practical purposes there was no need.
Had there been stretched across the Continent yesterday a line of clocks extending from the extreme eastern point of Maine to the extreme western point on the Pacific coast, and had each clock sounded an alarm at the hour of noon, local time there would have been a continuous ringing from the east to the west lasting for 3-1/4 hours. At noon today all across the continent there will undoubtedly be considerable confusion. —The New York Times, 1883
Here is an amusing solution: Instead of changing the clock back and forth twice a year with an hour’s jolt to the body clock, why not just have the clock move forward 10 minutes a month starting on April 1 and move backward for 10 minutes a month after October 1? Who will notice a 10-minute loss or gain each month? Ah, but you say that 10 minutes is a broad jump. You could miss a bus to work in 10 minutes even if the bus’s clock changes to accommodate the time change.
Okay, then, how about moving the clock forward on April 1 by 19 seconds a day and backward for 19 seconds a day after October 1? Then, you might say, we’ve missed a bundle of seconds that seemed to have disappeared. When October 1 comes around by the time on the real clock, the cycle begins again. Who—other than Demetrios Matsakis, who runs the Time Service Department at the US Naval Observatory—would notice 19 seconds moving forward or backward?
It might be too confusing, though, for the public to go along with missing 19 seconds per day. Some folks would claim that they are being robbed of time. Others would claim that God made time (which is not so; humans did) and we shouldn’t tamper with it. Others still would be against any messing around with time as it could further mess with the health of the body clock and balance of the mind.
Depression Essential Reads
Fortunately, we have zeitgebers—environmental time cues to endogenous biological rhythms—to help us synchronize our bodies with the environment. We are not plants with relatively simple biological rhythms synchronized to light, temperature, and other climate-related cycles. Human rhythms are confounded by meals, sleep habits, work, and social routines that keep our minds and bodies synchronized with solar time. There are many different zeitgebers, the most obvious being light, drugs, temperature, exercise, and eating patterns. They signal to a tiny region of the hypothalamus that concentrations of chemical components in the body should change to accommodate synchronization with the external 24-hour cycle.
Besides, twice a year, we change our routines. That’s a plus for health.
