In Praise of Permanent Standard Time

What is the Goal?

The goal is to adopt Permanent Standard Time in the United States.

What is Permanent Standard Time?

Standard Time is the time used in a time zone when Daylight Saving Time is not in effect.

Permanent Standard Time is the situation that would exist in a time zone if Daylight Saving Time were abolished, so that it never took effect.

Permanent Standard Time is the best timekeeping option for human health that works with time zones. People have internal biological clocks which are aligned to Local Solar Time, which is the time relative to local noon, when the sun is at its highest point in the sky. Time zones were created in the 19th century, when the speed of transportation and communication increased. Railroads found it difficult to synchronize train schedules based on Local Solar Time, and proposed that all clocks within a time zone be set to the same time, called Standard Time. Time zones work well so long as the Standard Time matches the Local Solar Time somewhere within the time zone. This means that on average, people are no more than thirty minutes out of sync with the sun. But when our biological clocks get out of sync with Local Solar Time by more than an hour, it impacts our physical and mental health. This is the cause of “jet lag”, which anyone who has taken an airplane flight crossing two or more time zones has experienced. Permanent Standard Time would ensure that our biological clocks would never be more than half an hour out of sync with our physical clocks.

Is Daylight Saving Time Bad for Our Health?

Some health experts believe so. Here are a few videos discussing some of the issues:

Make Standard Time Permanent

Toronto Researchers Push for Permanent Standard Time

Daylight Saving Time in the United States forces people to shift their clocks by an hour twice a year, in the familiar ritual of “spring forward” and “fall back”. Daylight Saving Time also forces us to change the time of our activities - when we wake, sleep, send our kids to school, drive to work, drive home from work, and so on. Many of these times are not in our control. They are controlled by businesses and governments. Changing the time means we MUST change when we do certain things in our day. There are studies showing that changing the time of our activities twice a year causes mental and physical health issues, including irritability, hostility, sleep disorders, traffic accidents, and other issues.

How Does Daylight Saving Time Affect Sleep? Worse, Daylight Saving Time means that for more than half the year (7 months, 24 days in the US), we increase the gap between Local Solar Time and the timing of our activities by an extra hour. Instead of being up to half an hour off from the sun on Standard Time, we are anywhere from one to one and a half hours off from the sun while in Daylight Saving Time.

Is Permanent Daylight Saving Time A Bad Idea?

Many states are requesting for Congress to allow them to shift to Daylight Saving Time permanently. In other words we “spring forward” but never “fall back”. It sounds good doesn’t it?. But it is a bad idea.

Permanent Daylight Saving Time would increase the amount of the year when our activities are out of sync with the sun. Instead of being out of sync by 1 ½ hours for more than 7 months of the year, we would be out of sync by that much for the entire year.

Despite this obvious flaw, more than 30 states have pursued legislation to make DST permanent. Here is an article explaining why that may not be such a good idea.

Why Sleep Experts Say It's Time to Ditch Daylight Saving Time

Why Not Use Local Solar Time?

We could now. Almost everyone has a mobile phone or other digital device with an integrated GPS. These devices already use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Also called Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), UTC is based on the Local Solar Time in Greenwich, England, which these days is calculated by atomic clocks. Modern devices can easily calculate Local Solar Time from longitude and UTC. They don’t have to be able to see the sun to know where it appears to be in the sky, from any location.

Even railroads could use Local Solar Time today. In the United States, every locomotive has an integrated GPS that is used to keep track of its location.

Until the day all of our devices are updated to use Local Solar Time, there are some mobile apps that are aware of it and can help us to set our daily routines according to the sun, whether or not DST is used where you live. Here is one that I use:

Solar Clock: Circadian Rhythm

Why Should I Support Permanent Standard Time?

Permanent Standard Time would improve the health of Americans right now. It would eliminate the very unpopular Daylight Saving Time clock changes. It is a better alternative than Permanent Daylight Saving Time. It is the closest we can get to Local Solar Time while still keeping the concept of time zones. It is how things were in America not so long ago.

What Can I Do?

Contact your representatives to let them know you support Permanent Standard Time, and that you oppose both Daylight Saving Time and Permanent Daylight Saving Time.