Sunday, March 8 marked the final time we in BC have to “spring ahead” and lose an hour of sleep as we enter daylight saving time (DST). The provincial government has passed legislation that BC will permanently stay in DST going forward. While it might look nice on the surface to no longer adjust the clocks every six months, Camosun Psychology instructor Michael Pollock warns that this change could have far more negative consequences than the government may have considered.
“For a long time sleep researchers said they don’t like [the transition], and particularly the one [to DST]. Spring ahead, so that means we lose an hour of sleep and that leads to impairments and sleep deprivation the next day,” says Pollock. “With the legislation that just passed with daylight savings all year round, our alarm clocks will be telling us to be waking up an hour earlier in the dark so we won’t get sunlight until an hour later. Essentially, we’ll be going to school in the dark, and to work, as well.”
Pollock argues that this change will affect everyone’s circadian rhythms, the biological clock that keeps us waking up and falling asleep around the same time every day. Morning sunlight is crucial for keeping this balanced, and winter mornings staying dark an hour longer will change those rhythms for the worse, he says.
“Normally our clocks stay in sync with the outside world because of light,” says Pollock. “Light is the main thing that keeps the rhythms in check so it doesn’t delay every day. And it’s morning sun, it’s not all the [sunlight].”
Pollock says that losing that hour of sunlight can throw the circadian rhythm out of sync and lead to poorer performance in work and school since a person’s internal clock may no longer align with the one outside.
“It’ll be really tough, and [many people] already have a hard time waking up in the morning and concentrating and now its going to be even harder,” he says. “They’ll be in this social jet lag, a kind of brain fog where your brain is out of sync with the outside world’s clocks.”
Pollock says that younger people in particular will be hit hard as their natural circadian rhythms encourage them to stay up late and sleep in, which will make getting up in time for work or school far more difficult than it is now.
“Unfortunately, I’m expecting that the students will be most affected, since at that young age your brain is already driving you to be night owls biologically,” he says. “Your brain wants you to stay up late and sleep in. They already have a hard time waking up for those 8:30 classes, and next winter if this legislation stays in place, it’s going to be so hard.”
Most sleep experts agree that if the government wants to switch to a permanent time they should pick standard time instead of DST.
“That’s been the longstanding opinion of sleep researchers and so they’ve been wanting to get rid of the transition for that reason, but the bigger issue is what we switch to,” says Pollock. “[What] sleep researchers, my colleagues, and I have been saying for a long time is we should switch to the original standard time all year round. Instead, the government has released that they’re going to go with permanent daylight savings time, and that was only meant for the summertime, when the days are longer. It was never meant or designed for the winter.”