A Neurologist Explains – Why Daylight Saving Time Is Unhealthy
As people in the U.S. prepare to turn their clocks ahead one hour in mid-March, I find myself bracing for the annual ritual of media stories about the disruptions to daily routines caused by switching from standard time to daylight saving time.
About a third of Americans say they don’t look forward to these twice-yearly time changes. An overwhelming 63% to 16% majority would like to eliminate them completely.
But the effects go beyond simple inconvenience. Researchers are discovering that “springing ahead” each March is connected with serious negative health effects.
I’m a professor of neurology and pediatrics at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, and the director of our sleep division. In a 2020 commentary for the journal JAMA Neurology, my co-authors and I r...