While my primary responsibility now is teaching, my past research focused on understanding the genes involved in the circadian clock, a cue all organisms have that sets the day in motion once the sun comes up and the temperatures warm.  

When we think about our health, the most ideal situation for our bodies and circadian clocks is to align our activities with the sunlight. When the time changes in the spring and fall, our bodies become disconnected from routine dictated by our internal mechanisms.

Springing forward is generally more challenging for humans because we’re losing an hour of sleep and we’re misaligned with what the sun is doing outside. It’s like jetlag. That’s when we see higher incidence of car accidents, strokes, and heart attacks because tiredness depresses the circadian clock. When we fall back, there is still a disconnect, but most of us are extending our sleep, so it’s not as detrimental.

It would be more beneficial for our health to permanently be on standard time instead of daylight saving time. If we stayed on the former, we wouldn’t have to wake up in the dark as much and our activities would be better aligned with the sunlight.