When does Daylight Saving Time end permanently? Here’s the status of 2022 bill

If you’ve grumbled about the disruption in your sleep when having to change your clock twice a year for Daylight Saving Time, you are not alone.

An Economist/YouGov poll last year found that 63% of Americans would rather we not change our clocks, and more of them supported making DST permanent, according to healthcare website advisory.com.

The sentiment is popular enough for the U.S. Senate to pass legislation in March to make DST permanent starting Nov. 5, 2023. The Sunshine Protection Act is now in front of the House of Representatives awaiting approval.

If the bill becomes law, and makes DST permanent, this year may be the last time we have to fiddle with our clocks. Until, of course, we change our minds again.

Are there health risks to Daylight Saving Time?

The time change ensures we have more sunlight in the evenings. The downside is that the sun in turn will rise much later in the morning, pushing us to head to work or school in the dark.

So, how does that impact our health?

According to the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine, it affects our natural circadian rhythm — disrupting the “natural seasonal adjustment of the human clock.”

The JCSM web site explains: “Both early morning darkness and light in the evening have a similar effect on circadian phase, causing the endogenous rhythm to shift to later in the day. There is evidence that the body clock does not adjust to DST even after several months.”

This disruption has real implications in how our innate biological clock syncs up with the environmental clock. This discrepancy is called the “social jet lag,” according to JCSM. Our early morning social demands in the dark lessen our ability to fall asleep at night when the sun stays up longer, increasing our risk of obesity, heart disease and depression.

Who do we thank for Daylight Saving Time?

According to the Farmers’ Almanac, we have good old Benjamin Franklin to blame for the practice. It points to a tongue-in-cheek letter Franklin submitted to a Parisian newspaper as evidence. Franklin’s observation of the shifting times when sunlight poured into his bedroom led him to suggest changing our schedules to better align with nature.

Franklin’s advice, according to the Almanac, surely lines up with a joke from an old Native American: “Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket.”

When do I change my clock this year?

We turn our clock back an hour this Sunday at 2 a.m.

This story was originally published November 1, 2022 at 11:30 AM.