Column: Why Daylight Saving Time doesn’t work and should stop

When I was in high school, I had to walk to the bus stop at 6:30 a.m. every weekday morning. I’d walk past the houses of my sleeping neighbors and trek through the local park before I could get a ride to school.

In the fall and winter seasons, that walk was pretty sketchy. It was dark and I’d find myself looking over my shoulder in case I found myself in one of those scenes at the beginning of a horror movie where the unsuspecting young victim falls prey to the scary monster.

If it had snowed recently, that walk to the bus stop would take an extra ten minutes of sloshing through snow that hadn’t been shoveled yet because no one else was awake at 6:30 in the morning.

The best part of my morning walk was the start of spring. Suddenly, there would be birds singing. I could see my hand in front of my face during the stretch between street lamps. People would be out walking or jogging. It would be warm enough to forego the winter coat for a light jacket or short sleeved shirt and life would just feel good. The misery that came with being forced to wake up that early every day seemed to lighten with the morning sky.

And then the second week of March arrived. Daylight Saving Time starts and I was once again plunged into darkness. I was forced to wake up an hour earlier than usual to walk the empty, quiet streets.

I wouldn’t see the morning sun again for another month after that.

While I don’t have to wake up that early every day any more, my dislike for daylight savings has only increased over the years. The more I learn about it, the more it becomes apparent to me that it causes more problems than it was supposed to fix way back in 1918 when it was signed into law.

Here’s the rationale behind the annual time shift: waking up one hour earlier in spring would reduce the demand of electricity used in the evening, therefore saving energy. This was important at the time because of World War I.

That’s right. DST was adopted because of the war — not farmers, not businesses. War.

And guess what? DST doesn’t even save energy. According to a study done in Indiana in 2006, there was a significant increase in the amount of electricity used when daylight saving time was adopted in the state. That’s because more people are active during the hottest part of the summer and so tend to use more air conditioning. In the fall and winter, more heating is used because people don’t want to wake up in a cold house. There was no decrease in artificial lighting either.

Here’s another interesting fact about DST: it’s literally bad for our health. During the first week, the number of recorded heart attacks spikes. There’s a matching decrease in heart attacks in fall when DST ends. A study in Australia back in 2008 found the number of suicides increased during the first few weeks of DST as well.

Deadly car crashes increases because groggy drivers driving in the dark are more prone to accidents, and productivity at work decreases because sleep-deprived employees are more likely to browse on their computers.

Students are also negatively affected, according to a 2011 study that observed a two percent decrease in SAT scores in countries that had DST.

Do I really need to go into detail about why this happens? Our bodies rely on a consistent schedule to tell us when to feel awake or tired. This circadian rhythm is also affected by the amount of natural light we receive. In other words, when it’s dark out, we’re tired. When it’s light out, we’re more awake. When our biological timekeeper is disrupted, our bodies need time to adjust.

We’re not the only ones who are affected by the time change either. Pets like dogs and cats are affected by sudden shifts in human habits. Even cows, who become accustomed to being milked at particular times of the day are disrupted when their humans come in an hour earlier or later than usual.

So if it’s so bad for us, why do we still have it? Every year, some states propose changes, but as of now, Hawaii and Arizona are the only states that don’t observe DST.

It’s time for the rest of the US to follow suit. If not for our own health, then for our pets.

For those who are interested, here are a few fun facts about the history of DST.

DST was first used by Ontario, Canada in 1908. It wasn’t until 1916 that it became popularized by Germany and Austria who used it as a way to minimize the use of artificial lighting during WW1.

Benjamin Franklin is often credited as the first person to come up with the idea of DST because in 1784 he wrote a satirical letter to the editor to the Journal of Paris suggesting the country could save money on candles if everyone got up earlier in the morning.

In reality, it was a New Zealand scientist named George Vernon Hudson who, in 1895, proposed shifting the clocks forward two hours in fall and back two hours in March. In 1905, a british builder named William Willett suggested setting the clocks forward 20 minutes each Sunday in April, and back again each Sunday in September. Willett’s plan actually made its way to the British Parliament as a bill, but didn’t pass because so many people opposed it, especially farmers.

The US adopted DST in 1918 but repealed it in 1919 because the farmers lobbied against it. However, that meant the states could decide whether they wanted to observed the time shift. For decades after that, there was chaos when it came to time. In fact, a person could take a 35 mile bus ride that would pass through five to seven different time zones.

In 1963, the Uniform Time Act was passed and DST was standardized for the country. States could choose to opt out if they wanted to stay on standard time. Only Arizona and Hawaii have opted out.