It’s a twice-annual American pastime to complain about changing our clocks — and Utah might be over it.
Washington County Republican Rep. Joseph Ellison, the author of a bill to lock Utah on mountain standard time, said he’s heard from a lot of Utahns who don’t like moving their clocks back in the fall and ahead in the spring.
That tracks with national sentiments.
A majority of Americans would prefer to ditch daylight saving time says a 2023 survey. Many scientific studies also highlight the negative health impacts of the biannual change. The loss of an hour in the spring has been associated with short-term increases in heart attacks, strokes and suicide.
Right now, it would take an act of Congress to allow full-time daylight saving. The only option available to states is going to permanent standard time, like Arizona. So that’s what Utah is considering, but which is better to keep year-round: standard time or daylight saving time?
Many medical professionals favor standard, saying it better aligns with the sun’s daily rise and fall and helps the human body stay in sync with its natural environment.
“Getting that light in the morning, it helps wake you up,” said Kelly Baron, who directs the behavioral sleep medicine program at the University of Utah. “It's also a signal to your internal clock at the start of the day that helps you stay on a regular schedule.”
Having the sunset earlier in the evening also allows more time for our bodies to release melatonin that helps us fall asleep, said Rebecca Robbins, an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and sleep scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts. Daylight saving time works against that.
“With the sun setting later, that will push our bedtimes later, and that will bump up against fixed early morning wake-up times, resulting in collectively less total sleep duration.”
In a society where one-third of people already don’t get enough sleep, she said that’s a problem.
Robbins was one of several doctors who wrote a 2023 paper for the Sleep Health Journal advocating against permanent daylight saving time. It’s part of a growing consensus among medical professionals who believe standard time is the best long-term solution for human health.
Utah is especially impacted by this dynamic because it’s on the western edge of the Mountain Time Zone, she said. That means sunrise and sunset already happen relatively late in the day and can lead to other health issues.
“We see spikes in cardiovascular outcomes and also in increased cancer risk in those individuals residing at the western edge of time zones, where essentially we're doing this experiment right now,” Robbins said.
The U.S. previously tried to implement permanent daylight saving time in the 1970s during the oil embargo crisis. That time around, Congress reversed the decision earlier than scheduled because of public opposition.
In recent years, federal proposals to make daylight saving time permanent nationwide have fizzled out before crossing the finish line, but legislators continue to try. Utah Rep. Celeste Maloy has a proposal, as does a bipartisan group of senators.
The change the Utah Legislature is considering, if approved, leaves the door open for the state to move to permanent daylight saving time if Congress approves it at a later date.
Steve Calandrillo, a law professor at the University of Washington, would like to see one of those federal daylight saving time proposals become a reality because of its impact on safety. Studies have suggested daylight saving time reduces traffic fatalities, potentially saving hundreds of lives each year.
“When you have sunlight out an hour longer, and the car sees the pedestrian walking through the crosswalk just a split second sooner because it's still daylight and that person is not hit by the car, they don't make the news,” Calandrillo said.
Darkness leads to traffic and pedestrian deaths whenever it happens, he said, but there’s more danger of accidents after sunset when people are out and about rather than before sunrise when people are more likely to be home. So, he said any sleep benefits of permanent standard time should be balanced against the potential lives saved by having an extra hour of light at night — and the fact that modern American life doesn’t lend itself to early bedtimes.
“The reality is, once electricity was invented — and now that screens are invented — nobody goes to sleep at sunset,” he said.
“[Sleep scientists] might be right. I'm not taking issue with that. What I'm taking issue with is the fact that people don't want to live their lives that way.”
More light in the evening could also boost local economies because people might feel more comfortable going out. That’s a concern shared by some in the Utah recreation industry. A representative of the Golf Alliance for Utah, for instance, spoke against the Utah bill during a Jan. 22 committee hearing saying a move away from daylight saving would limit the time people can play after work.
Baron understands many Utahns would like more light for getting outdoors in the evening, but also counters that the ski industry may favor more morning light so its workers can start doing ski patrol earlier in the day.
“There's no perfect solution to it, because where we live is in the northern hemisphere, and so we're going to have that big swing in daylight,” she said. “It's really about timing that light where it's best for biology, performance and safety.”
HB120 passed unanimously out of committee. It now heads to the House.
