iStockphoto
If you think switching our clocks back and forth twice a year is a dumb idea that makes no sense in 2025, you are far from alone. Daylight saving time (DST) is a scourge on our society that really needs to be abolished.
Only a third of the world’s countries use daylight saving time. Two states in America, Arizona and Hawaii, don’t use it, while the other 48 states do. Those reasons alone should be enough to put a halt to the practice, but there are a whole host of other reasons as well.
The first, and perhaps biggest, reason is that it messes with everyone’s sleep. Which, in turn, leads to more heart attacks in the month of March as people are deprived of much needed rest.
Daylight saving time also is less natural. Associate Professor of Neurology, University of Pittsburgh, explains, “Unlike daylight saving time, standard time follows the body’s natural circadian rhythm, which is primarily regulated by exposure to sunlight. Our internal clocks are most stable when morning light exposure occurs early in the day, signaling the body to wake up and regulate key biological functions such as hormone production, alertness and metabolism. In contrast, daylight saving time artificially extends evening light, delaying the body’s release of melatonin and making it harder to fall asleep at a biologically appropriate time.”
It also leads to more errors, injuries and absenteeism in the workplace, a big jump in traffic accident deaths, and has a negative effect on our youth. Teenagers are the most sleep-deprived age group in the United States, mostly due to early school start times. Switching the clocks twice a year only makes that problem worse.
That lack of sleep also leads to mental health issues, exacerbating existing conditions like depression. Suicide rates have been shown to increase significantly in the weeks following the time change in March.
Then there are the financial costs. According to one study, if we flipped it and went with year-round DST, it would save about $1.2 billion in vehicle collision costs.
According to a recent Gallup poll, “the majority of Americans (54%) say they are ready to do away with the practice. By contrast, 40% of U.S. adults say they are in favor of daylight saving time, while 6% are uncertain.”
“The Republican Party will use its best efforts to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t! Daylight Saving Time is inconvenient, and very costly to our Nation,” Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social this past December. Yet here we are, again.