I’ve seen reports of health consequences for people who work rotating shifts and for those who work steady overnight shifts ( such as midnight to 8am ). It’s sometimes difficult to tell with those studies how much is the effect of the work schedule , how much is an effect of people trying to keep a “normal schedule” on days off and how much is because they are trying to sleep during the hours that their body clock wants them to be awake and vice versa. That last one might be a little confusing, so let me explain- let’s say I work from 9am to 5pm. I go to sleep at 11pm and I wake up at 6am. Now my work schedule changes and I work from 2pm-10pm. I still go to sleep at 11 and wake up at 6 - I haven’t seen any reports that there will be health consequences for changing my work schedule without changing my sleep schedule. And that’s why “shift work” must be defined - is it any shift that doesn’t allow someone to sleep between roughly 11 pm and 7am ? Is it a shift where most of the shift falls between 7 pm and 6 am? Is it one where any of the shift falls between 7pm and 6am , so that a noon to 8 pm shift is included?
There are absolutely consequences when someone is working midnight to 8 am and is therefore trying to sleep during daylight hours - but it doesn’t follow that there are also problems when someone works from 7-3 or 8-4 rather than 9-5 - and I’ve never seen anything reporting that a study has found any consequence for that sort of long-term schedule (rather than any short-term consequences related to the change itself)
Worried about having the kids out before dawn for school during the winter if we have year-round DST? How about changing the school year from Sep-Jun, with the summer off, to Mar-Dec, with the winter off?
If that means that you have to get up an hour earlier (which it might not), it probably is bad for your health – more so for some people than others. The new job presumably has some significant advantage over the old job overall, though, or you wouldn’t have switched. (If you switched only because you lost the old job, then the new one has the advantage of being available when the old one no longer is.) And each individual gets to balance their personal reaction to time changes in deciding what job to take.
And most people don’t change jobs twice a year.
I think there are a whole lot of things about what’s currently expected in people’s work lives that are bad for many people’s health; the effect of any of them varying by the person. This one may be relatively minor compared to other effects for many; but just because ‘we’re used to doing this’ doesn’t mean ‘this isn’t bad for your health’.
I mean, this is really a backwards argument. There’s evidence that getting up earlier is bad for you. The articles posted are about science.
And you respond by saying, essentially, well if that were true, then getting up earlier would be bad for you, and that’s clearly wrong because I’ve never heard of that.
The same science would presumably apply. If you’re now getting up in the dark, it will affect your internal clock.
And if you have to work at 7:00 rather than 8:00, will you be able to get to sleep an hour earlier, or will you get less sleep? Because that’s unhealthy, and definitely involves internal clocks and sunlight and natural sleep cycles.
Some people are early birds. Some are not. Waking up often at the time unsuited to your nature is harmful, both short-term and long-term. Waking up at the right time is healthy, whatever that right time may be,
I’m an early, My new wife is a late. There is no way we can be happy without at least two and closer to four hours separating our wakening times. And therefore our going-to-bed-times. Not what I would have chosen, but there it is.
I have nothing useful to add, just a rant I guess … but as an early person I really hate the long dark mornings. For some reason it’s bothering me more this year though, not sure why.
I usually wake up on my own between 4:30 and 6-ish, my internal alarm seems to mostly go off at about 5 am. I have a mini farm and do most of my chores in the morning, before work. This year I’m supremely irritated by either having to wait longer until its light out, or do the outside stuff with a flashlight/headlamp.
[quote=“SCAdian, post:147, topic:981105”]
One of the good things about being retired is going to bed anywhere between 2330 and 0300, and usually waking around 1000.
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Well the weekend is as close as I get to retirement. But I only get up at 1000 to roll over and go back to sleep.
@SCAdian 2 posts above …
You and my new wife would be a matched pair. Actually, I exaggerate. Were she here she would point proudly to only rarely going to bed after 0200.
IMO there’s nothing useful except disco and sex that extends much past 2100. And life restarts promptly at 0500 when the day is fresh, the air warm, the moon bright, and the surf unmolested by mere mortals other than myself. Don’t miss a second of that precious shiny new day.
As we used to say in USAF: we get more good shit done by sunrise than most people do all day.
Roger that. I have to work to stay in bed past 6am, no matter what the season. Get up, get going and get shit done while there aren’t people around to get in the way.
I think vbob is referring to the days when an “hour” really meant “the period of time between the sundial showing one whole number and the next.” which, of course, did change pretty substantially before we all had gears and batteries on our wrists and in our pockets.
Speaking for those horribly affected by the time switch: I would greatly prefer Standard Time, but will settle for anything that ends the constant switching. I have what’s known as a “rigid body clock.” In my twenties I literally lost a job because of the switch. When I told my boss I simply couldn’t fall asleep any earlier, and it usually took 2-3 months to finally adjust, he shrugged his shoulders and said “Well, I’ll just hire somebody who can.” and handed me my final paycheck.
And sure, you can power through and force yourself to get out of bed after three hours’ sleep, but you are still at risk of making stupid mistakes while trying to perform your job that day. Its an impossible choice.
Employers nowadays are far more flexible. And it’s better for everybody. But for schools, and factories, and other institutions and corporations which cannot be so flexible, it is an absolute nightmare for workers.
Interestingly, I can’t find any good polling on what percentage of people find it severely (or medically) disruptive. But Seanette’s links above would seem to indicate that it’s even more people than realize it themselves. IOW, what was convenient all those years ago is no longer convenient now.
As for children’s safety, schools can change their start times as needed. Local employers can adjust accordingly to parents. We are not all dependent upon the mine whistle to wake us and let us know when to be at work. It’s all just old fashioned stubbornness on the part of clock-watching managers. Let them find something more important to do.
It’s a good point, but I feel like society must have already adjusted as much as it could. One of the things I’ve gotten out of this thread is that there is a ton of variation in each person’s situation: longitude, latitude, width of time-zone, school, work, daycare, international work, activities, weather, store hours, etc. Some of these I had never considered before. There isn’t a solution that can work for everyone and the best we can get is the optimal solution for the most people. My assumption is that society is likely to creep toward that optimal point over time. There is more variety in school, work, and store hours than in the past; that indicates there has been an adjustment.
I just think there isn’t that much room for adjustment. My school district sets the hours that work best for parents based on feedback, but there are constraints. Start times needs to be staggered based on traffic and the limited number of buses. In rural locations I imagine start times need to account for the sheer length of time the bus route takes. Similarly many office jobs are flexible, but someone that works in finance is often constrained by banking hours and another person that works at a store is constrained by the delivery schedule.
On another topic:
Are the adverse health effects of DST primarily from the switch? Or from the new time schedule? Obviously there are adverse effects from both, but from the little listening I have done it seems like the concern is more the second issue – living out-of-sync with the sun’s cycle and how that disrupts your internal body clock.
What does it mean to be in sync with the sun’s cycle? I don’t know anyone who sleeps from 8 pm to 4 am which is what it would take to center your day with the sun and get 8 hours of sleep. Having solar noon occur at 1 pm comes closer to centering the solar day with most people’s awake time.
And to answer the OP. Currently we have DST for roughly 8 months of the year. Europe has it for roughly 7 months. So if there’s to be no more clock changing, it makes some sense to freeze things to the more common current usage.
Or more specifically, I don’t know anyone who gets up at 7:50 AM and goes to bed at 5:15 PM in the middle of December. Even in mid-June sunrise here is at 6:10 AM and sunset is at 9:05 PM. That’s still a long night.
It does not mean to be completely aligned with the sun cycle. Instead it means that it is optimal if:
when you wake you take in a dose of morning sunlight, as directly as possible
as you approach bedtime you reduce exposure to natural and artificial lights
It is sub-optimal for those posters that are now waking up in the dark, since their body doesn’t immediately switch to ‘awake’ mode.
My understanding is that the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) acts as your internal body’s clock – communicating with various glands to release hormones, including the pineal gland which produces melatonin and modulates your sleep cycle. The SCN has a direct connection to the vision system and uses the light your eyes receive, and the wavelengths of that light, to synchronize with the day. Confounding this system can have a variety of effects and intensities for each individual.
Someone said it up-thread, maybe it was @LSLGuy, but the fundamental issue is that there is not enough daylight for our needs for part of the year. We can move it around to optimize for the most number of people, but that is just squeezing a balloon.
Actually, due to my work schedule I normally do sleep from 8pm to 3am (I have to be at work at 5 more often than not). But that is certainly NOT getting up with dawn and going to bed at sunset, particularly given my geographic location in regards to the time zone (far eastern edge of Central)
I don’t see why noon has to be centered on the work day. Assuming a 12 hour/12 hour split between night and day everyone will be awake during 4 hours of darkness, whether that’s all four at the start or the end of day or split evenly on each side. Full summer you’ll have less darkness, in winter more.
Most people do find it harder to fall asleep when there is still daylight outside, which is why the store I work at does a brisk business in “black out” curtains for those who have to go to bed early. For that reason, I don’t think pushing the time zone around to have a lot of daylight in the evening is a good idea.
