American morningmay arrive sooner than anticipated in the near future.
The unexpected promise made by President-elect Donald Trump to abolish daylight savings time would have a significant impact on American life during the spring and summer months, when people enjoy the sun late into the night.
Because daylight savings time tends to push the sun later in the day, spring and summer days are incredibly long and dazzling. By bringing more sunlight to earlier hours, standard time ensures that kids aren’t walking to school in the dark during cold weather.
The medical community, which has been advocating for years to establish standard time full-time, was taken aback by Trump’s proposal to end daylight savings time, a practice long thought to be backed by American economic interests. Daylight savings time is opposed on the grounds that it increases the risk of mood disorders, heart attacks, and auto accidents.
Even though the president-elect’s Truth Social post made it obvious that he wanted to abolish daylight savings time, Dr. Kin Yuen, a neurologist and sleep specialist from the University of California San Francisco, said she and her peer group of supporters of standard time are still not totally convinced by Trump’s commitment.
NBC News reported this week that Yuen said, “I think we were all rather incredulous,” just days after Trump’s statement. “So, yes, we are thrilled. We’re riding this wave, which should garner greater attention and highlight the advantages of permanent standard time for health.
The Uniform Time Act of 1966, which established guidelines for daylight savings time, describes how Americans change their clocks twice a year.
On November 7 of this year, America most recently returned to standard time.
Americans typically receive 9 to 11 hours of sunshine each day during the fall and winter months, with the sun shining between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m.
On March 9, 2025, the country will move ahead to daylight savings time, bringing with it 11 to 15 hours of sunshine per day, which typically begins between 5:30 and 6:30 a.m.
“There is a momentum to not have to change the clocks anymore,” stated Dr. Nathaniel Watson, a neurologist with the University of Washington Medicine Sleep Center and a longtime supporter of permanent standard time.
“However, there is this confusion that says, ‘Let’s not change clocks, and the only way to accomplish that is to move to permanent daylight savings time,’ which is simply untrue. Simply put, it should be normal time.
Sunshine during the hotter months would touch bedroom curtains at unusually early hours, maybe between 4:30 and 5:30 a.m., if America continued to observe standard time all year round.
Additionally, under standard time, the sun would set sooner on the latter part of summer days.
Baseball games that begin at 7 p.m. during the summer can frequently take advantage of multiple innings of sunlight and twilight due to daylight savings time. However, if those same summer night games were scheduled in standard time, the stadium lights might not turn on until after an inning or two of waning sunlight.
Year-round standard time was officially approved by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine in 2020, and the American Academy of Neurology followed suit in 2023.
According to doctors who support universal standard time, the human body operates optimally for 16 awake hours each day, and activities should be scheduled around “solar noon,” when the sun is at its greatest position in the sky.
Solar noon is around 12 p.m. on the wall clock during the majority of regular time months.That midpoint, however, typically occurs after 1 p.m. during daylight savings time.
Additionally, with reference to solar noon, workers and students with 9–5 schedules will now rise an hour sooner than their bodies would prefer.
“So you are forcing your body to get up at a time much earlier, you’re basically tricking your body into saying, ‘Get up an hour earlier for work and school,’ which is why a lot of people hate mornings,” explained Dr. Karin Johnson, a sleep specialist and neurologist at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, Massachusetts.
“So if you were on daylight savings time (year-round), it would makes us hate those mornings even more.”
Johnson stated that inconvenience is a minor cost to better align with circadian rhythm for those worried about the sun peaking through window blinds just a few hours after stumbling home from their neighborhood bar.
“Do we require sunrises at 3 or 4 a.m.? “No, that would not be acceptable to any of us,” she responded. “However, you can sleep through that by putting your face down. The sun’s alignment with our bodies (under standard time) is what we do require.
The fact that Trump’s announcement seemed to go against both public opinion and party leaders made it unexpected as well.
Legislation to make daylight savings time permanent was decisively approved by the Senate two years ago, but it languished after that.
One of the bill’s supporters, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., Trump’s nominee to head the State Department, has been an outspoken advocate for daylight savings time.
The insurance industry-funded Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHF) has long supported daylight saving time throughout the year.
According to the association, improved visibility during the early evening and after-work driving hours saves lives.
In a statement released this week, IIHF spokesperson Joseph Young stated, “We know there’s a strong relationship between increased darkness and fatal crashes, especially when it comes to pedestrian and bicyclists.”
“Leaving daylight saving time behind would result in earlier sunsets during the summer months, which would very likely result in more fatalities involving these road users.”
According to the IIHF, extensive infrastructure improvements would be required if America ever decided to end daylight savings time.
“If we do see daylight saving time come to an end, communities will need to think even harder about how to improve safety for those on foot,” Young stated. “Better lighting and infrastructure, lower vehicle speeds, and other changes that are already badly needed will become even more crucial.”
Additionally, certain corporate interests have pushed for daylight savings time, arguing that if it’s not too dark, it would encourage more after-work business.
A National Retail Federation spokesperson stated that her organization had no official stance on daylight savings time, and a Rubio representative was not immediately available for comment on Monday.
There appears to be a modest preference for daylight savings time in the scant polling that has been done on the subject over the years.
Just 31% of respondents stated they would prefer year-round standard time, but 50% of respondents stated they would support permanent daylight savings time, according to a YouGov poll conducted in March 2023.
“The marketing department of daylight savings time, which of course is highly connected with industries, did a much better job than we have,” said Dr. Yuen, who works at UCSF.
Whether we observe daylight saving time or not, we just have longer days because we naturally receive extra sunlight during daylight savings time. Additionally, I believe that we should better promote the opposite and remind people about the wintertime sitting in the dark at school.
In an attempt to extend daylight hours and reduce energy use during the OPEC oil crisis, the United States briefly implemented year-round daylight in 1974–75. However, the use of daylight savings time in the winter was swiftly discontinued due to its extreme unpopularity, as students had to hike to school in the dark.
Dr. Johnson stated that she is certain those poll respondents who are against permanent standard time are ignoring the 1974 rejection of year-round daylight savings time and instead equating it with the pleasant periods of spring break and summer vacations.
“There are huge (emotional) connections between summer and daylight savings time,” said Johnson. Indeed, we prefer warmer weather and longer days. However, the last time we tried permanent daylight savings time, in 1974, it didn’t succeed.
Sen. Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, recalled the unpleasant events of 1974 and stated that he would be open to supporting Trump’s efforts to implement standard time throughout the year.
Daylight Saving Time was once declared permanent by Congress. He added in a statement that Congress repealed it less than a year later because it was so unpopular. The only sensible and durable way to stop the biannual time change is to make Standard Time permanent.
The biggest response in that 2003 YouGov poll appeared to come from people who don’t want to change their clocks in either direction, as 62% respondents said they simply wanted the elimination of either standard or daylight savings time while 31% said they were OK with the status quo of both.
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