
Year-round daylight time will cause ‘permanent jet lag,’ sleep experts warn - pseudolus
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/daylight-time-bc-sleep-experts-1.5342620
======
lower
In Europe, Budapest, Berlin, Paris and Madrid have been in the same time zone
for over 80 years. The day in Paris is currently shifted by almost an hour
compared to Berlin. If the time shift has serious implications, then it ought
to be possible to demonstrate them by comparing Paris and Berlin.

Of course, it is perfectly fine to _prefer_ one time or another. But I do not
find the claims of health and safety impacts very convincing, given that many
places are already shifted today.

~~~
floitsch
Spain has long been suspected to suffer from their timezone choice. I do
remember reading about that problem before, and a fast Google search finds
several articles discussing the issue. (For example
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/22/spania...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/22/spaniards-
sleep-time-zone-spain))

Up to a certain point, countries adapt. For example, Germany and France are in
the same timezone, but their schedule is shifted. This can be easily seen when
looking at the TV schedules. In Germany, evening TV starts at 20:15 (the start
of movies, ...). In France it's more like 21:00. When I lived there it was
20:50, but TF1 now seems to start at 21:05.

German TV: [https://www.zdf.de/live-tv](https://www.zdf.de/live-tv)

French TV: [https://www.programme-tv.net/programme/chaine/programme-
tf1-...](https://www.programme-tv.net/programme/chaine/programme-tf1-19.html)

Similarly, schools and kindergardens are usually not at the same time.

This local shifting works more or less, but can't be stretched too far.
Especially multinational companies have expectations that workers come in at
certain times. This is the problem that Spain faces. (I couldn't easily check
by how much Spanish are shifted as Spanish TV schedules don't seem to
coordinated like in France or Germany).

~~~
izacus
Spain is, however, thought to be 2hrs 30mins ahead of "sun" time, not a mere
one hour we're talking about here.

~~~
pacificmint
> thought to be 2hrs 30mins ahead of "sun" time

Spain is certainly ahead by a lot, but the 2:30 is for Galicia which is the
westernmost tip of Spain (which is on the same longitude as Portugal, which is
in a different time Zone).

For most of Spain it’s less, tough still a lot.

------
Al-Khwarizmi
"Exposure to morning sunlight"? When? While commuting to a closed workplace
with artificial lighting, like the majority of the population does now?

I'd rather have exposure to sunlight after work, when I can actually, you
know, be outside and receive it, rather than be in closed spaces during
practically all the sunlit hours.

As for the kids, there is strong evidence than being actually outside
receiving sunlight is good for, e.g. preventing myopia. So it's also better
for them to have sunlight after school so they can play in the park under the
sun, than have it while they're at a closed space. Apart from the fact that
they prefer it that way.

PS: I'm not from Canada, but there is a similar debate in my country, and I
strongly prefer permanent DST. Actually, according to polls, a considerable
majority of the population does, but they still want to set permanent non-DST
time. Fortunately I have a flexible work schedule so I guess I'll just wake up
at 6 instead of 7 but still, the change will have an impact on my family.

~~~
varjag
I'm in Norway and really appreciate every extra minute of sunlight in the
autumn. When commuting, dropping off the kid to school, walking through a
frosty parking lot to the office building, and taking the first cup of coffee
with glimpse of sun in the window.

It makes the workday morning a lot more tolerable.

------
politelemon
Nowhere do they indicate a 'permanent jet lag', it feels like their open
letter has been misconstrued, I assume this is to get a catchy headline? It's
a short, easy to read open letter and I was able to understand what they're
saying.

They are calling on switching to Standard Time instead of Daylight Saving
Time. There can be adverse long term effects of switching to DST as opposed to
ST. And finally the reference to jetlag is in the context of _social jetlag_

~~~
dTal
I don't know what "social jetlag" is, but the 'lag' in jet lag is the latency
between a newly imposed sleep schedule and the body's circadian rhythms. You
can't have a permanent "lag" \- any "lag" effects will be gone within at most
a week or two. Whatever the pros and cons of DST, "jet lag" is not the right
way to describe them.

------
kstenerud
Hang on... Right now the sun comes up at 8 am and goes down at 4:30 pm in the
dead of winter at the 49th parallel. So it's dark when you get up and dark
before you get home from work. And it will still be dark after the change. So
what's the problem?

~~~
JohnStrangeII
You're absolutely right. It's going to be dark in winter anyway. The problem
is that "sleep experts" have personal opinions and preferences, too, and use
their expert status to push their personal agendas.

~~~
taffer
This does not explain why the opinions of sleep researchers are not in line
with the general population.

~~~
lonelappde
It certainly does. Sleep experts and anyone whose opinions are in like with
gen pop don't get quoted in clickbait news articles.

~~~
taffer
So you think a majority of sleep researchers think we should have DST all
year?

------
throw0101a
If anyone wants to go over the literature, this article has a good review:

* [https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2019.0094...](https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2019.00944/full)

TL; DR:

> _In summary, the scientific literature strongly argues against the switching
> between DST and Standard Time and even more so against adopting DST
> permanently. The latter would exaggerate all the effects described above
> beyond the simple extension of DST from approximately 8 months /year to 12
> months/year (depending on country) since body clocks are generally even
> later during winter than during the long photoperiods of summer (with DST)
> (Kantermann et al., 2007; Hadlow et al., 2014, 2018; Hashizaki et al.,
> 2018). Perennial DST increases SJL prevalence even more, as described
> above._

> _A solution to the problem is shown in Figure 2C, which contains a
> combination of obliterating DST (in favor of permanent Standard Time) and
> reassigning countries and regions to their actual sun-clock based time
> zones._

The official position of the scientists who study this sort of thing:

> _As an international organization of scientists dedicated to studying
> circadian and other biological rhythms, the Society for Research on
> Biological Rhythms (SRBR) engaged experts in the field to write a Position
> Paper on the consequences of choosing to live on DST or Standard Time (ST).
> The authors take the position that, based on comparisons of large
> populations living in DST or ST or on western versus eastern edges of time
> zones, the advantages of permanent ST outweigh switching to DST annually or
> permanently._

* [https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/07487304198541...](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0748730419854197)

The field in question:

* [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronobiology](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronobiology)

------
jefftk
Summary: if the sun rises later in winter then it will be dark when most
people wake up, which confuses your body and could lead to sleep deprivation.

~~~
espadrine
Blaming the clock system is easy. True blame is on work practices. It is the
year-round same-hour alarm that awakes people at awkward times, not the time
itself.

The real health solve is for workplaces to set an adaptive clock-in time, so
everyone wakes up with the sun.

International companies already have a country-dependent clock-in time; this
is not much of a stretch.

~~~
ianai
Agreed. We’re clearly at a point where worker and individual rights are at a
minimum and corporate and business rights a near totalitarian max.

------
nemetroid
If the issue is that children will have to wake up too early, make school
start later.

~~~
progval
Then parents will have to go to work later, so the whole day will be shifted
for everyone.

------
izacus
The European CET timezone is so wide, that several countries should actually
be in other timezones. Meaning: they already are part of this effect... and
yet somehow the medical experts didn't notice significant issues.

~~~
floitsch
They did.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Spain#Criticism_of_the...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Spain#Criticism_of_the_use_of_Central_European_Time)

------
JohnStrangeII
I find it hard to believe that this could have any significant effect, given
all the other negative influences on sleep we already have that seem to be way
more drastic.

In any case, our whole style of life has shifted from the mornings into the
evenings, so summertime makes much more sense than having no daylight savings
time at all. Summertime for the whole year is definitely my personal
preference. To be fair, I live in Portugal, where wintertime for the whole
year would be overall bad for the way we live and for tourism, because it
means that it will be dark at 8 PM instead of 9 PM. People here mostly live in
the evenings and start work at 9 AM and even later.

Or, keep adjusting for one hour twice a year. I've never had any problems or
complaint about shifting time either. It is nothing, not even a nuisance.
IMHO, there is no need to change something that works fine.

------
taurath
So by following that, everyone that does DST is on permanent jet lag 6 months
of the year? I don’t think so.

~~~
mattmanser
No, because the sun rises earlier in Summer.

~~~
zozbot234
No surprise there. The whole _point_ of DST is for the clock to loosely follow
sunrise, as opposed to the solar noon - so that daylight doesn't get "wasted"
in the longest summer days.

------
dwd
Brisbane, Australia is one place that should really be on permanent "daylight
savings time" relative to Melbourne and Sydney, or to put it a different way,
be UTC+11 rather than UTC+10.

Sunrise tomorrow morning will be 4:57am and by the solstice - 4:45am. Sydney
on DST will be a much more civilised 5:57am. That's sun shining in your window
being on the East coast, it's actually getting light much earlier!

If Brisbane was permanently UTC+11 it would be on the same time as Sydney
through summer (DST is 6 months of the year) and then an hour ahead for
winter. The latest sunrise time in winter would then be 7:38am which is the
same as Melbourne's and 1/2 hour later than Sydney. But given it's the dry
season and rarely overcast, daylight will begin more like 7:00am.

------
kokx
In the Netherlands, this is currently a hot discussion. At the moment, the
Netherlands belongs to the same timezone as Berlin. Historically, the dutch
time was GMT+0020 (that's right, 20 minutes more than GMT). This would be the
most natural timezone for the Netherlands. During the German occupation in the
1940s, the Dutch time was set to the same timezone as Germany. After the war
was over, this was kept as timezone.

Thus, we already have a timezone shifted in the wrong way, with less daylight
during the morning and more in the evenings. Moving to permanent DST, would
move our time even further away from the biological clocks of everyone.

------
mongol
I am in favour of abolishing daylight time and simply using time that assumes
sun is close to peak at noon. "Regular time", that is. I think it is backwards
to change time to fit human habits. Change the habits instead.

~~~
1_player
Doesn't work with countries far from the equator, where the sun never reaches
the zenith during winter time.

~~~
9192631770_Hz
Local noon is measured by meridian passage (a line) and not just the zenith (a
point, directly overhead). I assume that is what OP meant...have clock noon be
close to local noon. It’s a complicated issue, particularly long term, for
example, where it then bumps into the move to get rid of leap seconds.

~~~
mongol
Exactly. The usual timezones are set up with the general intent that 12:00 is
close to the time when sun is at its highest point in the sky. That is how our
time historically was calibrated and I don't see why that needs to change if
daylight time is abolished. It is a good reference. What else would be a
better reference?

------
partyboat1586
Imagine living somewhere far north like Ellesmere Island or Tromsø Norway
where the sunlight hours in some parts of the year are practically non
existent.

~~~
Filligree
I grew up in Northern Norway. It's pretty neat, to be honest -- it's true that
the sun never rises in the winter, but it's sort of circling right underneath
the horizon, so it doesn't get properly _dark_ either!

(If you just look at the calendar, the period of absolute night is fairly
short. But this is Norway, so even if the sun is technically above the
horizon, it's probably hidden behind a mountain.)

Mediterranean latitudes have far darker nights. This is especially true with
snow on the ground; at that point you can easily navigate by moonlight.

That being said, it is pretty dark. Norway has a particular type of seasonal
affective disorder which doesn't strike anywhere further south, and which
manifests as... well, difficulty sleeping, loss of energy, depression, lots of
bad things.

It never seems to affect anyone who grew up there, but it can be an issue even
for Norwegians who move northwards. As for refugees who end up placed there
... often they decide whatever they were running from was the lesser of two
evils.

------
faissaloo
So um, what if we just changed the time we go into work to something more
sensible, instead of changing the actual time.

------
chimeracoder
This is an unconvincing argument.

Singapore is effectively on year-round daylight time. Singapore is just barely
north of the equator, but it's on the same timezone as Indonesia, which puts
it a full hour ahead of the timezone it "should" be on, according to its solar
noon. As a result, sunrise is around 7am and sunset is around 7pm every day of
the year.

Somehow, this hasn't caused the country to fall into collapse, the way these
quoted sleep experts make it sound.

~~~
CrazyStat
The article is about Canada, far from the equator, where sunrise times are
substantially later in the winter months. Singapore is not a relevant case for
the experts' concern.

~~~
throw0101a
Yes, but "Canada" is big, and most of the people live on the southern portion
of it.

The southern Ontario wine region is at the same latitude as France's wine
region. Scotland is at the same latitude as northern Quebec.

Compare locations on a globe.

~~~
CrazyStat
France, Scotland. Neither of those are Singapore last time I checked.

By all means make comparisons to France and Scotland, I don't have any issues
with that.

------
jjk166
This is an argument for people to wake up later, not for clocks to be set back
an hour.

------
xellisx
I say keep standard time and maybe add some more time zones.

------
hugi
Well that’s just about the stupidest thing I’ve heard.

------
rudolph9
Solution: year-round standard time

~~~
1_player
That's exactly what TFA prescribes

------
shawkinaw
I hope this gains some traction. I lived in Arizona for a while, which is on
permanent standard time, and it was great. Now I’m on the east coast and the
sun comes up at 8 am. Thankfully the clocks change tonight, but if they
didn’t, which is what’s being considered here too, that would only get later
and later.

------
lazyjones
These discussions around setting clocks to full hours from GMT get us nowhere,
they miss the point: our problem is that our lives are organised around
arbitrarily set, typically "rounded" times of day, for no real reason other
than that we've always done it that way. We now have the means to change that
and e.g. set school timetables _relative to sunrise_ and can expect everyone
to have the means to follow them (e.g. a school app that shows you the exact
times for every day, or a general converter from "Sunrise +6 hours" to clock
time). Workplaces, buses could also adapt similarly. So we could finally get
rid of living by fixed timetables and switch to healthy schedules according to
sunlight.

TL;DR switch from "GMT+X" to "Sunrise+X" assisted by IT for most things to
solve all problems.

~~~
henrikschroder
It's kinda funny, discussions about time zones usually devolve into the
idiotic "UTC everywhere" suggestion, but your suggestion is the complete
opposite, and will result in time being different for everyone, from city to
city.

So you'll have a gradual half-hour difference between San Diego and Seattle in
the summer. When it's sunrise in San Diego, it's Half Past Sunrise in Seattle.
You're in Seattle, you have a phone meeting with someone in San Diego at two
hours past sunrise. Uh, when is that again? Oh, and you bring in a third party
from someone in SF, he's 15 minutes off to both of you.

~~~
lazyjones
> _Uh, when is that again?_

Uhm, it will be 18:26 or so for everyone. What's the problem?

~~~
henrikschroder
Ah, ok, you don't want to move time, you want to move opening hours relative
to sunrise. Gotcha.

That's not insane, but it's a very, very, very hard sell. I think the closest
you can get is having schools and workplaces move their starting hours by
half-hour increments across the year.

