4 ms·

The article is mostly suitably modest about mechanisms, focusing on the epidemiology of the observed effects, and it's more or less obvious to me that the trans

The article is mostly suitably modest about mechanisms, focusing on the epidemiology of the observed effects, and it's more or less obvious to me that the transitions are disruptive to everyone, and especially so to sensitive individuals. But there's also a bit in the answer to the fourth question (about long-term vs short-term impacts) that mentions effects of "chronic circadian misalignment". I've seen this a few times in various contexts, and it has always seemed to me that if this is what's driving some problems, one ought to be able to compare populations from different ends of an especially wide time zone, e.g. northwestern Indiana and Maine in the US, which are more than 15 degrees of longitude apart, but both in the US Eastern time zone. Surely one or the other of these groups always has at least half an hour of circadian misalignment? Edit to add: On re-reading, I caught the bit at the end of the "abolition" question where there is a reference to what I wanted, apparently there are studies showing that people in the eastern side of the Central time zone get more sleep than people on the western side. There's even a link (to the Elsevier paywall, alas, but still...) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167629618309718 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01676... Edit 2: 15 degrees of longitude, not latitude.

projektfu 6y ago
I’ve discovered that here on the western edge we simply arise later and work later. It’s not uncommon for people in New England to be awake at 5:30 am and starting their day.
- hunter2_ 6y ago
  By that logic, we could all just use UTC and set our own schedules with infinite granularity based on sunrise/sunset. I'm good with that.
  - wlll 6y ago
    That's pretty much what I do. I've worked remotely as a contractor (from the UK for mostly US companies) and I've rarely set an alarm for work in over 10 years. DST changes just slip past.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      I used to care a lot about DST because I live far east in a timezone (Boston area) and had fairly fixed working hours. These days I'm remote and besides a few relatively early meetings, I'm pretty flexible so I don't really care at this point what effective timezone I'm in (within reason) over the course of a year. I might even feel at this point that the very minor annoyance of changing clocks and syncing with worldwide DST changes doesn't really have offsetting benefits for me.
dahart 6y ago
> Surely one or the other of these groups always has at least half an hour of circadian misalignment? What is circadian misalignment? Nothing I see on Wikipedia backs up the idea that circadian rhythms are aligned to solar noon (which is what the interviewee in the article claimed). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm The very idea of chronic circadian misalignment due to DST seems a bit suspect since we know circadian rhythms are driven in part by changes in light, and they adapt reasonably quickly over time to changes in environment (“entrainment”). Sunrise and sunset are the main changes in light, while solar noon is one of the moments when light is changing the least. We also know computer screens and indoor lighting are affecting circadian rhythms, so isn’t it likely that games, Netflix and internet use are orders of magnitude more concerning than a one hour shift twice a year. DST is a smaller change in my sleep habits than my weekly swing!
throw0101a 6y ago
Two papers on why Standard Time should be used everywhere: * https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0748730419854197 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/07487304198541... * https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2019.00944/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2019.0094...
- reidacdc 6y ago
  Good to see that there is some literature, thanks!
  - dahart 6y ago
    FWIW stay curious - I was curious and followed the citations in those articles and found that there’s isn’t as much literature as is being claimed, and not a lot to directly support the conclusions. Some of the research that is cited is research into serious long term sleep deprivation, and is being assumed to apply to DST without any direct links demonstrated. For example, one of the papers cited (Koopman et al) talks about how sustained “Social jet lag” of 2 or more hours per week for years leads to higher rates of diabetes. That doesn’t directly support the idea of health risks caused by DST, nor is the difference in magnitude even discussed, but it was cited as supporting the claim that DST has serious health risks. There are at least several more examples of that in those links. Anyway, I don’t care if DST is abolished, but I’m personally more scared of agendas being cloaked in scientific sounding literature than I am of DST.
BurningFrog 6y ago
15 degrees is the the size a timezone "should" be, since 360°/24h = 15 degrees per hour. The Western European time zone ia about 33 degrees wide, from Spain to Poland. Spain is about 2 hours off their natural time..
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- ciceryadam 6y ago
  Spain is in the wrong timezone for seven decades, thanks to general Franco - https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/11/30/244995264/spains-been-in-the-wrong-time-zone-for-seven-decades?t=1604192848664 https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/11/30/244995264/...

projektfu 6y ago

I’ve discovered that here on the western edge we simply arise later and work later. It’s not uncommon for people in New England to be awake at 5:30 am and starting their day.

hunter2_ 6y ago
By that logic, we could all just use UTC and set our own schedules with infinite granularity based on sunrise/sunset. I'm good with that.
- wlll 6y ago
  That's pretty much what I do. I've worked remotely as a contractor (from the UK for mostly US companies) and I've rarely set an alarm for work in over 10 years. DST changes just slip past.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I used to care a lot about DST because I live far east in a timezone (Boston area) and had fairly fixed working hours. These days I'm remote and besides a few relatively early meetings, I'm pretty flexible so I don't really care at this point what effective timezone I'm in (within reason) over the course of a year. I might even feel at this point that the very minor annoyance of changing clocks and syncing with worldwide DST changes doesn't really have offsetting benefits for me.

dahart 6y ago

> Surely one or the other of these groups always has at least half an hour of circadian misalignment? What is circadian misalignment? Nothing I see on Wikipedia backs up the idea that circadian rhythms are aligned to solar noon (which is what the interviewee in the article claimed). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm The very idea of chronic circadian misalignment due to DST seems a bit suspect since we know circadian rhythms are driven in part by changes in light, and they adapt reasonably quickly over time to changes in environment (“entrainment”). Sunrise and sunset are the main changes in light, while solar noon is one of the moments when light is changing the least. We also know computer screens and indoor lighting are affecting circadian rhythms, so isn’t it likely that games, Netflix and internet use are orders of magnitude more concerning than a one hour shift twice a year. DST is a smaller change in my sleep habits than my weekly swing!

throw0101a 6y ago

Two papers on why Standard Time should be used everywhere: * https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0748730419854197 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/07487304198541... * https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2019.00944/full https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2019.0094...

reidacdc 6y ago
Good to see that there is some literature, thanks!
- dahart 6y ago
  FWIW stay curious - I was curious and followed the citations in those articles and found that there’s isn’t as much literature as is being claimed, and not a lot to directly support the conclusions. Some of the research that is cited is research into serious long term sleep deprivation, and is being assumed to apply to DST without any direct links demonstrated. For example, one of the papers cited (Koopman et al) talks about how sustained “Social jet lag” of 2 or more hours per week for years leads to higher rates of diabetes. That doesn’t directly support the idea of health risks caused by DST, nor is the difference in magnitude even discussed, but it was cited as supporting the claim that DST has serious health risks. There are at least several more examples of that in those links. Anyway, I don’t care if DST is abolished, but I’m personally more scared of agendas being cloaked in scientific sounding literature than I am of DST.

BurningFrog 6y ago

15 degrees is the the size a timezone "should" be, since 360°/24h = 15 degrees per hour. The Western European time zone ia about 33 degrees wide, from Spain to Poland. Spain is about 2 hours off their natural time..

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
ciceryadam 6y ago
Spain is in the wrong timezone for seven decades, thanks to general Franco - https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/11/30/244995264/spains-been-in-the-wrong-time-zone-for-seven-decades?t=1604192848664 https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2013/11/30/244995264/...