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St. Olaf College Associate Professor of Biology and Physics Jay Demas recently authored a Star Tribune commentary piece on a proposed bill in Washington D.C., that would make daylight saving time (DST) permanent. Called the Sunshine Protection Act, the bill would eliminate the twice-a-year “fall back” and “spring forward” clock changes. 

Demas argues that, while ending the clock changes is a good idea, making DST permanent year round raises its own health concerns. He writes, “Morning light is what anchors the entire day’s rhythm of alertness, hormones and sleep. Light in the evening does not do that job. In fact, it can do the opposite, pushing our rhythms later and delaying sleep.”

In the commentary, Demas explains that children and teenagers in Minnesota and other northern states would be greatly impacted because classes would begin at least an hour before sunrise in winter. Paired with the biological shift that naturally pushes teenagers’ sleep schedule later, he argues that permanent DST could disrupt their sleep cycle and ability to learn. He said, “This policy runs against everything sleep science has learned about adolescents.”

“They are a more anxious and more fragile one at a moment in our history when adolescent mental health is already in crisis,” Demas wrote. “Forcing Minnesota into permanent daylight saving time would, quite literally, return education to the dark ages. It would send a generation of students into their first period before dawn for months at a time in the coldest stretch of our northern winter.”

 Read his original commentary in the Star Tribune.