Daylight saving time bill could impact mental health

As the U.S. Senate considers a bill to make daylight saving time permanent, Spectrum News 1 Ohio recently reported that medical professionals say it could harm people with seasonal depression. 

If daylight saving time becomes permanent, the sun would rise and set an hour later than most are used to in the winter. For cities on the western edge of a time zone, including Cincinnati, that would mean there would be days when the sun wouldn't rise until after 9 a.m.

Erik Nelson, MD, a professor in the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine's Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Neuroscience, said that although it may be appealing to have the sun set later in winter, morning sunlight is critical to our biological clocks.

“Even though you would have a little bit more light in the afternoon, evidence shows that morning light is more important for us in terms of synchronizing our biological clock," said Nelson, a psychiatrist at the UC Gardner Neuroscience Institute’s Mood Disorders Center. “People who have seasonal affective disorder, so-called winter depression, who either exclusively have depression in the winter or have a worsening of existing depression in the winter, seem to be sensitive to losing that morning sunlight.”

Nelson also said that changing the clocks twice a year leads to an increase in cardiac events.

He aligns with the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, which recommends adopting permanent standard time.

Watch the full Spectrum News 1 Ohio story.

Featured image at top: iStock/Tatomm.