If you like summertime sunsets and late dinners outside, this bill’s for you. On Tuesday, lawmakers in The US House of Representatives voted 308-117 to enact the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make Daylight Saving Time (DST) permanent across most of the US.
The yea votes were a mix of both Democrats (114) and Republicans (193). Ninety-five Democrats and 22 Republicans voted against the bill.
President Trump called the move “Great News for America!” on Truth Social. If enacted, the rule would come with some notable exceptions for places like Hawaii, Arizona, and others who do not do any annual clock-switching right now. State lawmakers would also be free to enact permanent standard time instead, if they wished.
The bill faces an uncertain path in the Senate, where lawmakers voted on a similar measure in 2022. Since then, numerous health experts have pointed out the biological issues with making DST permanent.
Standard time is the better choice for our bodies, health experts say
Dr. Akinbolaji Akingbola, a sleep expert at the University of Minnesota Medical School, previously told Business Insider that standard time is the “easier” choice for our bodies, if we have to pick.
“Because we have more sunlight in the morning, it’s easier for us to wake up,” he said. “Then it’s darker in the evening, it’s easier for us to go to sleep.”
When our clocks lurch forward in the spring time, concentration, reaction times, and our mood “all suffer,” Akingbola said. Studies show accidents, strokes, and heart attacks spike when we switch to daylight-saving time. It’s even harder for night owls — who, according to a 2021 study, can take a full week to recover from the jet-lagged feeling of clock-switching.
For years, sleep experts like Akingbola around the world have been pleading: end daylight-saving time for good, and keep standard time year round.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine, in a position statement endorsed by cardiologists, dentists, the National Safety Council, and others, argues for the permanent adoption of standard time, which the AASM says “aligns best with human circadian biology, and provides distinct benefits for public health and safety.”
There is no real reason why we observe daylight-saving time
Daylight-saving time was originally concocted to save energy by keeping the sun out later in the day, but that idea was never very evidence-based.
Of course, there are always 24 hours in a day, the Earth does a 360-degree spin during each one, and we’re never really “saving” any time. DST just capitalizes on the fact that there are more hours of daylight in the summertime overall, shifting some of those forward to give us brighter evenings. (This is less relevant in places closer to the equator like Hawaii, where the number of hours of daylight is pretty similar year-round.)
Republicans and Democrats in the US Senate agreed to ditch the switch in the spring of 2022, unanimously passing the “Sunshine Protection Act” right after DST began that year. But the act had a bumpy ride in 2023.
The prospect of year-round DST may sound good to business owners. More light in the evenings could bring in more sales. But doctors and health experts would like to see a permanent move the other way, preserving winter’s standard time.
“When we saw that, it was kind of an ‘oopsie-daisies'” Akingbola said of the Senate’s Sunshine Protection Act. “We’ve all been pretty clear that standard time would be the better choice.”
Experts at the Sleep Research Society say daylight-saving time can delay our bodies’ natural melatonin production, making it harder to get to sleep. The stress hormone cortisol is also thrown out of balance by the shift, which can change metabolism and influence inflammation.
Some lawmakers have also pointed out that we have tried this strategy before and people kind of hated it. In 1973, Congress passed similar legislation, hoping to reduce energy consumption. The new year-round DST clock went into effect in January 1974 after President Richard Nixon signed it into law, and the public quickly soured on their pitch-black winter mornings commuting to work and school in the dark. The move was repealed by President Gerald Ford just 10 months later, in October 1974.
How to improve your sleep no matter what time zone you’re in
Akingbola says there are things you can do to improve your sleep and feel more alert at work or at school, no matter what time zone you’re in. Opening up the blinds first thing in the morning and letting the sunlight in, turning down the thermostat when you go to bed, and finding a quiet room for sleeping are all good habits to adopt.
But the doctor says his main piece of advice for better sleep boils down to one thing.
“Unfortunately, I just have the world’s most uninteresting advice: you need a consistent sleep schedule,” he said.
A more biologically-aligned clock could help us think more clearly, enhance the self-cleaning mode our brains go into during a good sleep, and improve both mood and problem solving — all benefits of a more consistent sleep routine.
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