Standard Time

by Zach Geller ‘25

The United States should join the rest of the world and stick to permanent Standard Time (ST). This is for numerous reasons, especially the benefits that ST has over Daylight Saving Time (DST). The first and most important of these benefits is that ST aligns with people’s natural circadian rhythm, or the body’s inner-clock.

The benefits of following your circadian rhythm are clear and important, such as better sleep, lower risks of mental illness, and healthier emotional coping strategies like temper control. Circadian rhythms match best with Standard Time, and get out of sorts whenever clocks are an hour backwards. “Evidence indicates that the body clock does not adjust to DST even after several months, so that ongoing sleep debt and circadian misalignment continue to persist,” according to the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. People’s bodies are meant to rise with the sun and rest in the night, so even a slight shift has harmful effects.

There’s also the argument of convenience; Standard Time would align the country with the rest of the world. Time zones already offset the time between areas, and having to keep track of an extra hour switch for the United States can confuse foreigners. Observing Daylight Saving Time is unnecessary, and it just doesn’t make sense.

Daylight Saving Time

by Nick Hammond ‘25

Hopefully when the United States abolishes the shift of clocks, the country will keep permanent Daylight Saving Time (DST). This simply makes more logical sense for the majority of Americans.

First of all, the sun setting early in the evening is a bummer for many people. Think back to the start of winter – were you really happy seeing the sun go down around 5:00pm some days? I certainly wasn’t, and that’s Standard Time for you. Especially when most students get home around 3:00pm, we hardly get any daylight left. In the winter students with sports or extracurriculars sometimes don’t even see the sun when they get out of school and head home. Shifting sunsets an hour earlier will make the evenings feel fleeting and sad.

While current internal clocks may align more with Standard Time, if given more than a few months with DST, people should be able to adapt and feel better mentally. Furthermore, the additional sun exposure and vitamin D in the evenings will also contribute to student well-being as well as physical health. Foreigners would also quickly adapt to this change if we make it apply across the country. Travelers are already used to shifting time zones, and wouldn’t have a problem with a time structure in DST after a very short while.