The Hidden Health Costs of Daylight Saving Time and Exactly How to Overcome Them

Did you know that moving our clocks ahead by just one hour each spring dramatically impacts our health?

It’s easy to think of Daylight Saving Time (DST) as a minor inconvenience–we lose an hour of sleep and maybe feel groggy the next day. But the truth is this one small shift can have a big impact on our physical, mental, and emotional well-being.

Yet, despite the research showing just how harmful DST can be, our elected officials have been pushing over the last several years to make it permanent. Most recently the White House even revived the discussion looking at the financial and health cost of Daylight Saving Time [1].

The Hidden Impact of Daylight Saving Time (DST)

Each year, we adjust our clocks twice to get more daylight in the evening: once in the spring (“spring forward,” or Daylight Saving Time, DST) and once in the fall (“fall back,” Standard Time). While these shifts may have made sense a hundred years ago, we now know that altering our natural rhythms can be unhealthy, if not dangerous, to our health. This shift interferes with our sleep, mental clarity and even our social behaviors [2].

Well-known researchers in the area of circadian rhythm, like Satchin Panda, PhD, author of The Circadian Code book, would suggest that we need to prepare ahead of time to deal with the time shift. Creating a ritual days before the time change, ensuring an earlier wake-up time and adequate light in the morning as well as more dim light and an earlier dinner, would be part of his strategy to find alignment with the new time.

Research from Matthew Walker, PhD, a sleep scientist and professor of neuroscience at University of California at Berkeley, showed that “when people lose one hour of sleep, there’s a clear hit on our innate human kindness and our motivation to help other people in need.” [3]

In fact, the personal health effects may be so drastic that in 2020, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine published a position statement advocating for the abolishment of DST due to its effects on health [4].

Beyond health, DST disrupts global communication since not all countries follow DST. Plus, there’s evidence that DST has a negative economic impact by reducing productivity and performance. Even farmers, who have often been falsely associated with the implementation of DST, are one of the strongest lobby groups opposing DST–particularly dairy farmers since the milking patterns of their cows don’t change when we shift the clocks. [5, 6, 7].

How DST disrupts our bodies

To understand why DST affects us so profoundly, it’s important to differentiate between three types of clocks:

• Social Clock: The time on the clock we can define and manipulate as we wish.
• Solar Clock: Time based on the sun’s position, with noon being when it’s at its highest.
• Body Clock: Inherent wake and sleep times set by our circadian rhythms.

Our circadian rhythms–our body’s natural internal clock–aren’t synchronized with the social clock we use to track time. When we “spring forward” shifting to DST, our internal clocks become misaligned with the natural light-dark cycle. This disruption can lead to poor sleep quality, mood changes, and difficulty waking up in the mornings [2]. Over time, this misalignment can have serious consequences for our health, including decreased life expectancy, mental health challenges and reduced cognitive performance [8, 9, 10].

Research shows that staying in sync with our circadian rhythms is essential for long-term health and well-being [10]. Unfortunately, from March to November, our body clock is out of sync with the time we observe due to DST. By contrast, during Standard Time, our clocks are synchronized with natural daylight, supporting better sleep and overall well-being. [2, 8].

Physical health impacts of DST

The most obvious impact of DST is on sleep. In the spring, we lose one hour of sleep, which disrupts our circadian rhythm and throws off our body’s natural sleep-wake cycle [4]. This misalignment not only affects sleep, but can impact our eating habits, physical activities, and overall behavior. Over time, this can lead to an increased risk of heart attacks [2], how our immune systems respond to viruses [11], and even changes in physical performance [12] seen in marathon runners. Plus, the time change can lead to minor injuries(e.g., head bumps) and even major workplace injuries involving machinery, which can put people at risk of harm [13].

The acute effects of switching to DST include increased cardiovascular events such as heart attacks, which have been documented to increase by 4-29% immediately following the time change [a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29461606/">14]. Autopsy data collected before and after the spring change to DST reveals a spike in deaths during the week after the springtime shift, including traffic collisions, suicides and heart-related deaths, such as cardiac insufficiency and heart attacks. It’s clear that the abrupt time change disrupts more than just sleep—it affects our overall health and safety.

However, no increase in autopsies is seen in the fall when people gain an extra hour of rest and have the chance to align their body clock with the solar day [15]. Another study concluded that just a “one-hour change of the clock may impact population health significantly” after finding an increase in injuries, complications due to pregnancy and childbirth, noninfective enteritis and colitis, and circulatory diseases [2].

Emotional-mental health impacts of DST

One of the biggest impacts of DST is on our emotional and mental health. Sleep deprivation can affect our mood and mental alertness, as well as our ability to process emotions [2,16]. For example, one study found that there could be associations between depressive episodes and the transition into DST [17]. Even losing just one hour of sleep can trigger changes in the brain’s social-cognitive areas–the regions responsible for empathy and social connection [18]. These changes can affect how we interact with others, making us less likely to help or show generosity and even less charitable in giving [18].

Eti Ben Simon PhD, a University of California at Berkeley researcher who works with Matthew Walker PhD, shared that “a lack of sleep makes people less empathetic, less generous, more socially withdrawn, and it’s infectious -- there is a contagion of loneliness” [3].

Is DST going to be permanent?

In March 2022, the U.S. Senate passed the Sunshine Protection Act in an effort to make DST permanent. However, the bill failed to get a vote last year in the U.S. House of Representatives because lawmakers could not agree on whether to keep standard time or adopt permanent DST. Despite concerns about the negative impacts of DST, the Senate reintroduced the bill in January 2025, with plans to begin in November 2025. This isn’t the first time permanent DST has been proposed. In 1974, the clocks stayed on DST over the winter but the proposal was quickly repealed after just one year due to the difficulty of children and workers traveling to school or work in the morning darkness.

Fortunately, the Sunshine Protection Act has yet to pass the U.S. House of Representatives, making permanent DST uncertain [19]. However, leading sleep groups, such as the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the National Sleep Foundation, strongly advocate abolishing seasonal time changes altogether [4,20]. They’re advocating for sticking with permanent Standard Time, which is more closely aligned with our circadian biology [4].

Standard Time aligns our clocks with the natural solar cycle, where noon is when the sun is at its highest and we get equal hours of light before and after noon. Most importantly for human health, the environmental day and our circadian clock align on Standard Time, allowing for both good quality and sufficient sleep. Until two hundred years ago, with the invention of electric light, we aligned ourselves around the solar clock for most of human history.

If you are interested in making your voice heard on this topic, view the Change.org petition.

Surviving Daylight Saving Time: The Exact 7 Things to do for a Smooth Transition

Even though we are still subject to DST, there are some simple yet effective strategies you can use to help your body adjust more smoothly:

1. Shift your sleep gradually: Start going to bed 15 minutes earlier for the three nights leading up to the time change. These subtle adjustments allow your body to adapt to the change in time.
2. Get morning light: Expose yourself to bright light for 30 minutes soon after waking each morning to help reset your circadian rhythm and wake up feeling energized.
3. Supplement with 0.3 mg plant melatonin: Melatonin is one of the most powerful tools when addressing jet lag. A general guideline is for every time zone you cross take 0.3 mg. The hour shift for Daylight Saving Time can be approached similarly, where we are trying to adjust our circadian rhythm to the "new time zone”. Based on an hour shift (or one time zone), taking just 0.3 mg melatonin for 2-3 hours before bed to help with getting to sleep earlier for 3-5 days leading up to the time change and a few days after†. Herbatonin 0.3 mg is plant melatonin in its natural matrix, and is believed to be absorbed gradually, much like the release of melatonin in our body to help adjust our internal clock and improve sleep quality. Also, Herbatonin is 6-9 times more effective than synthetic melatonin with respect to cellular health support.*
4. Avoid late meals: Eating too late can shift your body clock even later [21], making it hard to adjust to Daylight Saving Time.
5. Time your exercise: Exercising at 7 AM or between 1 and 4 PM can help shift your body clock earlier [22], making it easier to sleep at bedtime and wake up in the morning.
6. Hydrate with water and trace minerals: Both hydration and getting key minerals are important for brain functioning and alertness. Aim to drink 8-12 oz of water with Sole added, which optimizes hydration, first thing in the morning, 30+ minutes before breakfast.
7. Tap into adaptogens: Energize your adrenal hormones and support your cortisol production in the morning through the use of plant adaptogens such as Revolution Macalibrium for men and Femmenessence for women.

†Melatonin can make you sleepy. Therefore, do not operate heavy machinery or drive when taking melatonin.