Shea’s Health Corner: Pros and Cons of Daylight Savings

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With Daylight Savings Time (DST)  for the 2019 Calendar year,many individuals are discussing if DTS is good or bad for our health. Generally speaking, some states have decided to make their state an all year daylight savings time in order to improve the health of those living in their state as well as not have to change the time twice a year ( as seen in Eva’s The Law of Daylight Savings Time). With this happening in more states, but still only in two states officially, there are pros and cons to having days of more sunlight.. Since the sun is out longer in the day, this allows for people to enjoy the outdoors longer, and allows for them to do more activities outside rather than inside.

Though there are some health concerns of DST, there also some health benefits as well. Longer hours of sunshine has shown a decrease in the number of people who suffer from depression, as they are making more serotonin to decrease depressive behavior and emotions. Also,  more sunlight is linked to people’s bodies producing melatonin, therefore people sleep much better during DST as a result of the increase in melatonin and sunlight (vitamin D). Daylight savings also has the benefit of getting individuals to be more active as the sun is out for more hours of the day than usual.  

While there are benefits to having daylight savings time, there are some health issues related to having daylight savings time. Things such as losing an hour of sleep means just that. or some people it does not affect them, but for others the impact is more profound. Losing an hour of sleep can lead to health issues such as an increase in risk of heart attack after three days of switching to DST. Being overtired from lack of sleep has led to more accidents during DST as well. Daylight Savings Time has also been linked to miscarriages for in vitro fertilization patients.

DTS has many pros and cons as it helps people mentally and can have severe side effects, such as greater risk for heart attacks. With their being good and bad health benefits, do you think it’s beneficial for states to have Daylight Savings Time all year round?