Love it or hate it, it is that time of year again! Daylight saving time remains a controversial topic amongst the early birds and night owls of the world. Some welcome the extra hour of sunlight every spring, while others mourn the hour of sleep they are deprived of. So why do we change our clocks with the seasons anyways?
Daylight saving time is the practice of changing our clocks by one hour in order to maximize the hours we get to enjoy the sunlight with the changing seasons. In most Canadian provinces, U.S. states and some European countries, people change their clocks forward an hour during the second weekend of March, and backwards an hour during the first weekend of November. Many falsely assume this practice is done for the sake of farmers and other agricultural workers, but the large consensus among them is that doing their chores in the darkness is not ideal. As described by a spokesperson for the Indiana Farm Bureau, Katherine Dutro, “It is a gimmick that changes the relationship between ‘Sun’ time and ‘clock’ time but saves neither time nor daylight.”
Interestingly enough, the first person ever recorded to suggest a version of daylight saving was Ben Franklin. In 1784, he wrote a small proposal titled An Economical Project, suggesting that waking up when the sun rises could help to save on the cost of candles burnt. However, the first person to advocate for an official changing of the clocks was William Willet, in 1907, who wrote a manifesto called The Waste of Daylight. He proposed that we should change the clocks by 20 minutes every Sunday in April and November, moving forwards in the spring and backwards in the fall. “That so many as 210 hours of daylight are, to all intents and purposes, wasted every year is a defect in our civilization. Let England recognize and remedy it,” declared Willet.
Nevertheless, Willet’s proposal did not stick, and it was actually the arrival of the First World War that prompted the first official switches, as daylight saving time was used as a method of preserving coal in Germany in 1915, with the British quick to follow in 1916. Canada and the U.S. did not fully adopt daylight saving time until 1918, and this experiment lasted only until 1920. It was imposed again in 1941 in North America during the Second World War in an effort to maximize homefront productivity and conserve fuel, and has endured ever since.
In 2025, how can daylight saving time impact your health? According to Dr. Charles Czeisler of Harvard Medical School, “That one-hour change may not seem like much, but it can wreak havoc on people’s mental and physical well-being in the short term.” The switch from standard time can have an effect on our circadian rhythm (controlled largely by light exposure) which can impact our sleep schedule and mood, by delaying the production of essential hormones like serotonin and melatonin. Daylight saving time may also have an impact on Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), described as increasing depression associated with the shortening of days in the winter time and the lack of sunlight. Symptoms may include feelings of depression, heightened rates of anxiety, irritability, trouble falling or staying asleep, among others.
What can we do to best prepare for the transition from standard time to daylight saving time? Dr. Czeisler has a few suggestions. By adjusting your bedtime to make up for the sleep lost each spring, taking a nap in the afternoon to catch up on rest, getting outdoors, having an intentionally calmer morning routine, and avoiding alcohol and caffeine (sleep disruptors), we can feel as though we are back on track in no time.
