Daylight Savings Time Might Be Permanent Soon
By Maddie Quigley
Each spring, all states in the U.S. apart from Arizona and Hawaii, turn their clocks an hour forward. Turning the clocks back an hour every fall is a tough adjustment for many Americans.
Our society operates on limited hours of sleep every day in order to maximize productivity. Losing an hour even just for one day throws off our bodies. An increased risk of stroke and heart attacks is seen on the two days a year the clocks are changed.
Doctors who study sleep argue removing this practice would result in prioritizing sleep health. And while the spring switch causes the majority of health issues, most people don’t use the extra hour added in the fall for sleep, so doctors say it is not necessary either. 
Daylight Savings Time can have a negative impact on students. Many college kids sleep in and do a lot of their work at night or go to the library and class all day and by the time they get out of class, it is dark.
Losing an hour even just for one day throws off our bodies. An increased risk of stroke and heart attacks is seen on the two days a year the clocks are changed.
This in turn takes away crucial hours of daylight at the end of each day where we have access to sunlight and results in vitamin D deficiencies, affecting us mentally. This applies to professionals as well.
If it doesn’t appear to benefit many people in today’s society, so why did it start? In the United States, it started during World War I as a way to save energy. The goal was to lead people to spend more time outside in the evening instead of inside using lights to conserve electricity.
Then, the clocks needed to be changed back in the fall in order for farmers to be able to work in daylight in the morning. So this continued throughout the twentieth century. While its use varied at the state level before, it became federal law in 1966 which states are able to opt out of.
Some states in recent years have proposed legislation to remove Daylight Savings Time, contingent on the federal government passing a similar measure. The Senate officially passed the Sunshine Protection Act of 2021 this year.
This act would make Daylight Savings Time permanent, meaning that in spring of 2024 our clocks could spring forward and they would never have to fall back again.
The bill must be passed by the House of Representatives’ before it can be signed into law by President Biden and take effect next year.
Many people would be happy with this bill making it through the federal government, and it seems like prayers to end Daylight Savings Time may be answered in the next year or so.
Photo courtesy of Pixabay