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March 2026It is that time of year when clocks mysteriously change the time themselves and somehow we lose an hour of sleep. For several years, there have been articles in the medical literature about just how dangerous the time change is. From all the doom and gloom that is portrayed in these articles, one would think that this might be an extinction level event. I am not about to try to change your mind about the merits of the semi annual event, but are we really at risk of some major health crisis over waking up one hour earlier once a year?
There are countless places to look to get the full history of daylight savings time so I will not go into detail about it. The US has been observing this practice for over 100 years, but even then, it was not a new idea. For myself, I prefer to have daylight hours after work rather than before work, so I am perfectly content to leave things alone. Growing up a bit west of where I presently live, at the peak of summer it was routinely light until 10 PM. Here, it is pitch black by 9:15 PM. Sunrise is a bit after 4:30 AM. This is with daylight savings. Without it, sunrise is 3:30 AM and it is dark by 8:15 PM. All that sunlight before I wake up seems like a waste to me.
But the purpose of this article is to look at the concern that this loss of one hour of sleep one time a year is potentially a cataclysmic event. So what are the concerns? Mood changes, heart attacks, strokes, motor vehicle accidents and many other serious health consequences are blamed on missing this one hour of sleep. There is no doubt that some adjustment to a new routine is required the first day, but some of the articles out there suggest that it may take weeks to adjust. Really? As a veteran of missing an hour (or more) of sleep with more regularity than the time change, I have always been skeptical about the claims of how dangerous to our health this practice is. This year again, I am seeing that the practice should be banned for our health.
Cardiovascular disease is a massive burden on the health care system. It can have devastating affects on the patient and their family. There should not be much of an argument to do something so simple to prevent that much disease and disability. A recent article stated that 300,000 strokes a year could be prevented by simply not moving the clock. This number is based on mathematical models and not actual observations. I think someone needs to check the math on this. There are roughly 800,000 strokes diagnosed in the US per year and 165,000 of them are fatal. So simply not changing the clocks will cut the number of strokes in the US by nearly 40 percent?
Another claim in this article is that obesity is caused by changing to daylight savings time. Obesity? If we just didn’t shift to daylight savings nearly 2 million Americans would not be obese. Wait, do you mean to tell me that if we didn’t observe daylight savings time, I could eat all the junk food that I wanted to and stay skinny? That alone might be worth the price of admission. But that number is another mathematical model. Bummer.
I’ll concede that there may be more accidents on one day a year, but is it really possible that the accident rate for the year is influenced by this? Work and school schedules are tied to the numbers on the clock. The time of day does make a difference in travel patterns. If it is dark, it is hard to see our young ones. Even this far East in the Central time zone, it is still relatively light when the buses are out in most communities. Not so in the country though. If we were serious about the best possible learning environment for our kids, school would start at 9 am instead of 8.
Maybe the one area that is hard to dismiss is the influence light has on the brain. Our brain clearly responds to light of various frequencies. The visible spectrum of light energy is divided into 7 colors. The red end of the spectrum is longer wavelengths and lower energy, while the violet end is shorter wavelengths and higher energy. Blue light has become a villain for us. Too much blue light in the evening will activate parts of the brain that keep us awake or disrupt our sleep. Bright white light early in the day is used for the treatment of seasonal affective disorder. If you are affected by this condition, look for a light box with 10,000 lux light output and keep that close by for 30 minutes in the morning. The light needs to be indirect so no need to stare at it.
I would argue that if any change to the clock should be to keep Daylight Savings Time just for this reason. Our normal circadian rhythm, as well as the way society has structured the start times for most activities, lends itself better to this than having hours of light before it is truly useful to us. As the sun sets, the atmosphere filters out the light frequencies at the shorter end of the spectrum. This leaves us with the red end, which is the calming end of the light spectrum, preparing us for a good night of rest. As we move into the house after dark, look for light bulbs that are more yellow, or warmer, as the terminology goes, to minimize reactivating the brain. I have, in a previous column, discussed the red end of the spectrum and the health benefits that it provides to us.
Wherever you fall (or spring) into the spectrum of love or hate for the time change, the fear mongering about how dangerous it is for your health is mostly fabricated from mathematical models and not real world observations. The temporary hassle of this is just that — temporary. This is the time of the year that we all look forward to, as spring returns to the Northwoods.
GenesisPrimaryCare.com
