By Nicholas Cosgrove 

Photography & Backpage Editor

The time changes brought by daylight savings have long been the subject of controversy, and that’s no different with this most recent clock change. Many students are struggling with the earlier sunsets and feeling like days are over before they even begin. Senior Cameron Cole sums up the student body’s thoughts quite well, saying, “It’s annoying. I don’t really like it.”

It isn’t just students complaining; doctors and other professionals have come out with their own grievances against the daylight savings time switch. Doctors have raised concerns that the biannual schedule change has harmful effects on students’ already strained sleep schedules. Changes in sleep schedules can cause both short and long-term health impacts such as mood disorders and changes in blood pressure. Senior Dylan Quach is very aware of these impacts, complaining, “I don’t like [the time change]. I lose sleep. I always feel more tired.” With the constant tests and quizzes high school brings, sleep is of the utmost importance, and having your sleep schedule significantly disrupted twice a year can have big ramifications.

The body’s circadian rhythm is very important, and having to change so frequently for daylight savings interferes with that rhythm. When your circadian rhythm is thrown off, you feel more tired in the mornings, and it can cause you to have shorter attention spans and experience metabolism changes. Sunlight exposure is associated with increased serotonin production, which helps boost mood and combat depression. As such, when sunlight exposure is impacted, people feel the negative effects. Northwestern Medicine has reported that there is an 11% increase in depressive episodes in the week following a time change. If daylight savings were adopted permanently, the depressive effects of seasonal changes would be lessened, as sunlight exposure would be increased and the loss of sunlight would be felt more gradually rather than all at once as it is now.

If we adopt the daylight savings schedule (“spring forward” time) on a permanent basis, there will even be recreational benefits. Increased sunlight allows for people to continue participating in outdoor activities further into the year. People will be able to get more exercise thanks to being able to run and play outside, and there will be more leisure opportunities in general for people of all ages in the afternoon, a welcome respite after long days at work and school.

The US has been under a uniform daylight saving system since 1966, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible to change the system. In the 1970s, permanent daylight savings time was enacted for a short time. In March 2022 the Senate passed a bill called the Sunshine Protection Act that would have permanently put daylight savings in place, but the bill stalled in the House. The US is actually not in the majority when it comes to its observance of daylight saving time. As senior Carsten Winslow says, “I think that daylight savings [time changes are] bad; we should do it like the rest of the world does.” Only around a third of the countries in the world change their clocks every year for daylight savings, which begs the question: if most of the world can be free from this system, why can’t the US?