Standard Versus Daylight Saving Time: Which Is Better?

Sree Roy:

Hello and welcome. I’m Sree Roy with Sleep Review and I’m happy to be joined by Jay Pea. Jay Pea is a retired software engineer and amateur astronomer, a fan of circadian health, and the president of the nonprofit Save Standard Time. Jay works as a volunteer to connect policy makers with scientists, doctors, teachers, and community leaders to end daylight savings time, the quickest and healthiest way by restoration of permanent standard time. Jay, what is the Save Standard Time movement?

Jay Pea:

Hello, and thank you very much for having me here on your podcast here. The Save Standard Time movement is a growing coalition of concerned citizens. We are scientists, doctors, teachers, farmers, astronomers, parents, and many other persons that want to come together to reject this new movement to retry permanent daylight saving time. We would prefer rather to preserve and ex extend the observation of standard time, that being the naturally-defined, sun-based, longitudinally-correct clock to be used as much as possible, preferably year round.

Sree Roy:

Explain why standard time versus daylight savings time, if we were to extend one or make one of those year round.

Jay Pea:

Yeah, so there’s a lot of confusion and it’s very understandable. Time itself is … It’s something that’s hard to put your finger on. It’s not as easy of a measurement as distance or weight, but it is still a measurement of nature. Time is supposed to reflect the sun’s position in the sky. It’s not some artificial construct, but it is an objective reality. And so there is, for me personally, as an amateur astronomer, I feel there’s a sense of just basic integrity, this idea of being honest about what time it is really. And standard time is that. It is the naturally defined clock from the sun’s position in the sky.

Jay Pea:

There are other reasons too. The federal law is set up to favor standard time. Any state can opt out of daylight saving time, but they can’t go to permanent DST. So if you want to end clock changes, permanent standard time is the quickest way to do it. There are also historical reasons. We’ve seen that when we try permanent DST, it usually fails. It sounds attractive on the surface to have summertime in the winter, but you can’t legislate winter to be sunnier or warmer or any more summer like.

Jay Pea:

What the design of daylight saving time really is when we turn the clock forward an hour, we are falsifying the clock so we can leave work early. And that’s great, except the next morning you have to get up an hour early. And I don’t think most people want to do that, especially in the winter when the sun rises so late. If we had DST in the winter, we’d be getting up and going to work or to school before the sun rises for, depending on where you live, for a quarter or a third, or maybe even half of the year. And so historically when we’ve tried permanent DST, we find that it doesn’t work. It’s depressing and it’s dangerous. It chronically deprives our sleep.

Jay Pea:

And that leads into circadian health. There is an aspect of our biology, where every living cell is trained to the solar clock through a circadian rhythm. And it’s not a perfect system, and it needs to be reset by exposure to morning light. But with daylight saving time, we are forcing ourselves to get up earlier than we’re more naturally inclined, and that deprives us of the exposure to morning light. So we’re getting up more often by alarm clock rather than by the natural release of cortisol hormones in the morning.

Jay Pea:

And I’ve had to do this in my volunteer work for Save Standard Time because I live on the west coast and many legislatures are further east of me. And so when they have a meeting at 8:00 on their time zone, I’m having to get up an hour or two or three hours early. And when I set my alarm clock to go off and start this work before the suns, it’s really challenging to be compelling and congenial and friendly and to convey my thoughts at such an early hour when I’ve interrupted my sleep. And then even for the rest of the day, I just feel groggy. I feel off. I feel as if I’ve traveled on a plane.

Jay Pea:

And this is a phenomenon that scientists call social jet lag, where real jet lag is when you travel by jet and you have that lagging feeling. But the social jet lag is if you change your clock, you change your social schedule. So by forcing myself to get up early, I experience this social jet lag and it really lingers for several hours, if not the whole day. And if we were on permanent DST, we’d be doing that to ourselves every day for the entirety of winter.

Jay Pea:

There are other reasons too. Polling generally shows that more people prefer standard time than daylight saving time. There’s also an environmental impact. When we are forcing ourselves to get up earlier with DST, we are turning the heat on earlier in the day because it’s cold in the morning. And so we’re burning more energy in that regard when we should actually be in bed sleeping under our snug blankets.

Jay Pea:

So there’s a host of reasons, from common sense and integrity, astronomy, the history of it, the polling, the federal law, the circadian health. And the circadian health, I’ll add, connects to the general health of the public, as well as safety, education, and economy. Because when we are not getting enough sleep, we are not as alert as we should be when we’re driving. And that leads to dangers on the roadways, increased traffic accidents, and also dangers in the workplace, increased workplace accidents. If we’re not getting enough sleep, our performance in school and the workplace also suffers. We see lower grades among school children, and we see lower wages and productivity among workers.

Jay Pea:

So it really all connects together. And it’s just basic common sense. Standard time is the real time. If we’re going to have a permanent clock, a year round clock, which we should, it really ought to be the one that’s defined from the sun, the one that is the objectively defined clock, and that is permanent standard time.

Sree Roy:

I can definitely appreciate that. I work with people in the Central time zone and the Eastern time zone, but I am in California. So when I’m trying to get up early for meetings, which for some reason, I get invited to meetings at 7:00 AM my time, I guess, because it’s 9:00 AM in Kansas. And I definitely want to and probably have some logic of blaming my bad attitude at that time on lack of sleep because I’ve got to get up at 6:00 AM if I want to get to that 7:00 AM meeting. So I definitely appreciate your points there.

Jay Pea:

It’ll become very apparent as we change clocks when we spring forward. I think I’ve been waking up naturally with the sun lately because we’re moving into the springtime now. But once we push the clocks forward for DST in March, suddenly millions of us will be waking up by alarm clock in the dark again. It’ll be as if it’s January in the middle of March and it’s not good. It’s not pleasant. And it’s not just that one Monday after we change clocks, but it’s for the rest of the week and the rest of the month. It really continues onward. It becomes a chronic issue.

Sree Roy:

That’s something I was hoping you could touch on a bit, is that what are some of the problems that are the acute problems that occur the day or maybe the week of the time change, which we have coming up in just a few weeks now in March?

Jay Pea:

Yes, this is the most obvious problem that most people notice the acute harm. When we spring clocks forward an hour, we have a sudden loss of sleep. And the idea of daylight saving time, again, is to wake ourselves earlier to go to work earlier so that we can leave work earlier. That’s what we really want, is to leave work earlier. But we don’t want to wake up any earlier to go to work or early. It’s not how most of us are naturally inclined. So you can try to go to bed earlier when we change clocks, but you’re probably not going to be successful. It’s a challenge to do. You’re going to lie in bed. It might even be light out when you’re trying to go to sleep. So we find that when we spring the clocks forward, there’s an average loss of about 40 minutes of sleep. We can’t just instantly change our sleep schedules. And so that carries forward into traffic accidents, workplace accidents, loss of productivity, increased hospitalizations.

Jay Pea:

I have some numbers lined up. The incidence of stroke spikes 9% after changing clocks to DST in the spring. Heart attack increases by 24 to 50%. And that’s on the Monday afterward and it lingers 5-15% for the remainder of the week after we change clocks. Traffic deaths in the US spike 17% the Monday after changing clocks, workplace injuries among the labor workforce increase nearly 6% after we change clocks. The severity of injuries increase about 67% after we move clocks forward. Office productivity drops 20% after we move clocks forward. It’s estimated that we lose over $400 million annually and the stock market is more often to drop the Monday after we change clocks, which also brings with it a loss of billions of dollars.

Jay Pea:

So I think most people notice this and understandably are frustrated by it. Why are we changing clocks? Most people don’t understand why, don’t remember the reasoning behind it. It’s a confusing issue. And so the polling shows most people agree that we want to stop changing clocks, and it’s most harmful in the spring when we move forward from standard time to daylight.

Sree Roy:

Are there any other longer-term, like season-long issues that we haven’t touched on yet that are caused by those time change, like other circadian misalignment issues?

Jay Pea:

Yes. So in addition to the acute harm that most people notice, there is a more subtle harm, the chronic harm. Because it’s not just that sudden forcing ourselves to wake up early when we change from standard time to daylight saving time in the spring, but it’s that we continue to do it. The first Monday after daylight saving time begins in March, we wake up an hour early, but then the next day, on Tuesday, we do it again. We do it the rest of the week. We do it for the months that follow for more than half the year. Every day, we are waking ourselves up in hour early.

Jay Pea:

And this has a chronic effect, a lingering effect. It’s estimated that we are sleeping 19 minutes less when we are on daily saving time rather than standard time. Our bodies don’t adjust to DST. We sleep less. Our cortisol release changes by only two minutes rather than the full 60 minutes of that spring forward an hour, and it leads to a chronic social jet lag. It’s estimated to increase incidents of cancer, heart attack, obesity, leukemia, seasonal depression, traffic accidents, productivity, loss of earnings, all of these things. It’s less than the acute harm, but it’s longer lasting than the acute harm. So it’s still not an ideal situation to be in.

Jay Pea:

And again, it’s by design. That’s what the purpose us of daily saving time, is to wake ourselves earlier. And I think if we were to ask the population, “Do you want to set your alarm clocks an hour early?” Most people would say, “No, I’d rather not do that. Let us sleep longer. Let us sleep better.” And standard time is the way to do that.

Jay Pea:

Connecting it again to circadian health, standard time is defined from the sun’s position in the sky. And our bodies want to be in tune with that. And when we are lying about the time of day with daylight saving time, it’s … Historically it was called fast time. I’ve known some people who like to set their … This was before we all had telephones in our pockets, but I have known people that would set their clocks five minutes fast so they could always be somewhere on time. And that always flabbergasted me personally. I was thinking, why can’t you just plan to be five minutes early?

Jay Pea:

So daily saving time is similar to that. It’s people wanting to leave work early so they pretend it’s an hour later than it really is. And why not? I mean, if you really want to go to work early, why not choose to go to work early? And if you don’t have that choice, let’s look at giving you that choice rather than forcing everyone else into that unhealthy way of life.

Sree Roy:

Wow. That information about the cortisol release only two minutes earlier, that is alarming to me. I’d never heard that before.

Jay Pea:

When we are continuing to observe daylight saving time, it’s estimated that obesity is increased by 20 to 30%. And the rates of heart disease are increased by 11%. When we are staying to daylight, saving time, the cancer rates, breast cancer 5-12%, prostate cancer 12%, colorectal cancer 14%. Many types of cancer, we see estimates that we are increasing the rate by remaining on the wrong clock, by remaining on daylight saving time. And it all ties back to, again, the circadian health and the sleep health. We simply sleep better and longer when we are more in tune with our circadian health connected to the solar clock, which is most naturally approximated through standard time.

Sree Roy:

Can we learn anything from the states that don’t have of daylight saving time, such as Hawaii and most of Arizona?

Jay Pea:

Yeah. So standard time, permanent standard time, also known as exemption from daylight saving time, is observed in the states of Arizona and Hawaii. But now Arizona has the exception of the Navajo Nation. The Navajo Nation observes seasonal DST, but the rest of Arizona is on permanent standard time. Hawaii is on permanent standard time. And all five populated territories, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Northern Mariana islands, Guam and American Samoa are also on permanent standard time. It’s federally pre-approved by the Uniform Time Act, Title 15 of the US Code, Section 260, Paragraph A.

Jay Pea:

So when we look at these states and territories that are on permanent standard time, we do see that they have a lower crime rate in the summer. Or you could say that we have a higher crime rate in the rest of the US. We have data looking at the FBI Crime Data Explorer, which is an open source for the public to view, and counties pulled from, for example, New Mexico and Georgia and other states showing two, three, four, five percent higher crime in the summer months.

Jay Pea:

There’s not been a lot of other studies around this that I have at my disposal, but I could also historically show that … I mean, we can look at that Arizona, Hawaii, and the territories are not asking to be on DST. The population is perfectly happy with permanent standard time. And occasionally it gets reposed there and it quickly gets shut down as an idea that’s not of interest it’s very rare to end permanent standard time. It’s much more often that we find when we try daylight saving time, or when we try, especially permanent daylight saving time, that it causes problems and it gets rejected. It becomes a waste of time, a waste of money, and sometimes a waste of lives.

Sree Roy:

With so much support to Save Standard Time, why is it so hard to change the laws?

Jay Pea:

That’s a good question. I would say the daylight saving time has been pushed for decades by special interests because, I mean, daylight saving time was initially proposed by white collar, more well-to-do workers who wanted to play golf after work and chambers of commerce who wanted to increase shopping after work. The golf industry has … They believe that it increases the number of rounds of golf games that are played after work. So daily saving time has money behind it. It was lobbied. It was tried during the world wars on the suggestion, the hypothesis, the idea that it might save energy, and there was never really any data behind that. And as we’ve looked at it more, we have found that the data shows that it actually increases waste of energy.

Jay Pea:

So it was unpopular in the world wars, and it was reverted after peace were stored, but then it was lobbied to be brought back because of the financial interests to increase shopping and other spending after work. When it was brought back, and then it was also lobbied to be extended. It used to be just in the summer months, and then it’s been increased to include spring and autumn. It was extended in the US in 1986, by the … I think they were called the National Daylight, Saving Time Coalition Association, something like that. And then again, in 2005, they extended it. So in 86, they extended it from six to seven months. And then in 2005, they extended it to nearly eight months long under the Bush Administration. And then now they’re going for the full 12 months again.

Jay Pea:

So they’ve been pushing this for many years, if not decades. And it just personally got my attention in 2018, when permanent DST was passed in the state of Florida. And then we had a voter referendum to permit the legislature to try either permanent DST or permanent standard time in the state of California. Several other states started to jump on the bandwagon as well. And so that’s when I decided to look into it. And I wasn’t seeing much citizen action being taken. Thankfully, there were some scientific societies, especially with the circadian health groups, that were issuing position statements saying we should not be following permanent DST. We should be abolishing DST.

Jay Pea:

And unfortunately, those statements have sometimes been misunderstood or misused because when they say we should abolish daylight saving time, many people think that DST refers to the action of changing clocks, when really it’s a parallel clock. It’s as if you wanted to adjust the temperature in your home by swapping from Fahrenheit to Celsius thermometers. And that would change the numbers, but it really wouldn’t make it feel any colder or warmer in your house. And it’s the same thing we’re doing with this clock change when we’re changing between standard time and DST. We’re just changing the numbers, but it really doesn’t make us feel any better. And in actuality, it makes us feel worse.

Jay Pea:

So in 2019, I decided to start this campaign with the vision of it becoming a nonprofit. And in last year, in 2021, we incorporated. We’ve had board members join, and we’ve been expanding as a group, and we’ve been more and more engaged in the legislative process. And I’m not a lobbyist. I’ve been learning as I’ve been going. And it’s interesting. It’s a lot of fun. It brings me back to a combination of high school civics class, and Saturday Night Live skits on politics. Seeing how the sausage is made, some say. Every state operates differently, and Congress operates differently as well. They have different processes. They do have a lot in common as well. In some cases, it’s designed to go slowly, and for better or for worse. It can be a challenge to get a bill to move through the process before the deadlines are met.

Jay Pea:

So the DST crowd has a head start by several years and the standard crowd, we are catching up, but we are gaining ground. Last year, there were … I think it was about like three to one bills were for daylight time, and now we’ve got that down to two to one. So we are increasing the ratio of standard to daylight saving time bills. And that’s a good thing. It’s a challenge to shift that momentum because there is sort of a lemming effect where some states feel they have to just follow what their neighbors are doing. And we really want them to look at what the science and history and polling are showing, that we really should be sticking to standard time and not DST.

Jay Pea:

It’s a challenge of messaging. When we tell people we want to end DST, a lot of times, they just think we want to end clock change. It’s hard to break through the static and get through to legislative offices. I mean, I’m very new on the scene. Our nonprofit is very new. And so lacking that name recognition, it’s hard to get people to call you back initially. But we are growing very quickly. We have nearly 2000 followers on Twitter now, and I think 3000 total across all social networks. We’re getting more recognition in the mainstream press.

Jay Pea:

Yeah, it’s an interesting, fun process. It’s not something I ever expected to do with my life, but somebody had to do it. And so really my goal is to bring all these different groups together: the scientists, the teachers, just the average citizen, and give us all the common voice and to have something positive. I want to save standard time. I want to preserve this natural clock, this shared heritage. I personally come from rural Iowa. My great-grandfather was a crop farmer and my great uncle was a dairy farmer. And I was taught to tell the time of day from where the sun is in sky, and I love that connection that I get from standard time being a reflection of where the sun is in the sky, that we see on the sundial, that I see in my hobby of amateur astronomy.

Jay Pea:

And I want to make that easier and more accessible for the public, for any children out there that are interested in learning more about astronomy, to see how we naturally move through the course of the year, with the days slowly getting longer as we move toward the summer solstice, and then getting shorter as we move back into the winter solstice. Someone online told me that we live inside a giant clock where the sun tells the time of day, the moon tells the day of the month, and the constellations tell us what time of year it is. And I really love that idea of these cycles within cycles, this connection to our bodies and to the world around us, and standard time is just one part of that. And I really would like if we can hold on to that and pass it on the future generations.

Sree Roy:

Thank you for sharing all of that with us. Tell our audience where they can find you online, including a Twitter handle.

Jay Pea:

Yes. Please go to Save Standard Time’s website, SaveStandardTime.com. We have a lot of information. We have many of the concerns that I’ve listed, all the sources that we’re citing. We have an interactive chart where you can plug the city where you live in North America, and it will count how many days you are waking or going to work or school before or after sunrise on one clock versus the other clock. We have some informational graphics and memes as well on the website. We are most active on Twitter at Save Standard, but we’re also on Facebook and LinkedIn and Instagram and YouTube as well.

Jay Pea:

I want to mention one more thing. We have a new option where if you want to reach out to your state lawmakers and remind them that permanent standard time is federally pre-approved, it’s the quickest and healthiest way to end clock change. You can text SST for Save Standard Time to the number 50409, or we have a link to it if you want to click on our social media and website, and that can send a pre-written letter to your state lawmakers reminding them that permanent standard time, DST exemption, is the quickest and healthiest way to end unpopular clock change.

Sree Roy:

Thank you so much, Jay, for sharing your insights with Sleep Review’s audience, as well as with others who are interested in this important issue. I appreciate it. Again, I’m Sree Roy with Sleep Review and today I was joined by Jay Pea. Thank you so much for talking about saving standard time.

Jay Pea:

It was my pleasure. Thanks very much for having me.