The Deep Dive, Getting to the Bottom of Daylight Saving Time

In the above map, you see three appropriate time-zone boundary lines. The red areas to the left of these boundary lines show inappropriate time zones that now exist. These regions disrupt circadian influence, they are economically harmful, and they cause discomfort for those of us who are needlessly compelled to get out of bed one hour earlier on cold, dark winter mornings. They are a key reason that time in the US is damaging. With inappropriate time zones, proper time is delayed. Because of this, the map is filled with 29% too many inappropriate, high-delay counties and, at the same locations, contains 29% too few low-delay counties. As you will soon see, long DSTs and improper time zones create overarching changes in seasonal morning darkness. Surprisingly, a Memorial Day to Labor DST has only a tiny footprint. It is possible to have a DST with minimal adverse impact so long as it is short. It is the length of the current DST that causes serious harm. While Permanent Standard Time is ideal, a short DST can serve as a low-impact alternative.

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Repair your local time zone & see the change

Now, move the cursor over this interactive map to consider a time zone fix. The first column in the Table below is the same as in the first map. However, when a time zone is changed, results from the fix are shown separately in black in a second column. The second column is empty when no change occurs. In each second column section, the top right percentage reveals the best option; lower left, the worst option. This map shows pure one-hour time zones, with solar delays falling within a ±30 minute range. Eastern time begins at longitude -67.5°; Central, at -82.5°; Mountain, at -97.5°; and Pacific, at -112.5°. These one-hour, time-zone boundary lines are shown on the map. Fixing time zones in this orderly fashion produces the highly favorable outcomes shown, when appropriate, at your cursor and in the second column of the map Table. To eliminate high delays, 479 counties in the Eastern time zone, 370 in the Central, and 47 in the Mountain need to change. In this group of counties, when we change time zone and select a Memorial to Labor Day DST instead of the Current DST, we go from an average 64% of sunrises after 7:00 AM to 4%. On average, our latest sunrise goes from 8:04 AM to 6:54 AM. By these DST and time zone changes, we reliably start our mornings with adequate sunlight. In almost 900 US counties, we did not and could not do this before, because we were locked into an inappropriate DST and an inappropriate time zone. When these time-zone changes are applied at the instant a DST begins in the spring of the year, these counties (fifty-three million people) will not need to change clocks then. They will seamlessly transition into their new time.

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Map Side-by-Side Comparison, Before & After

The "After" shows that throughout the United States, up to the Canadian border, you can have ample early morning sunlight for appropriate circadian entrainment. As in the previous interactive map showing the time-zone repair, the first column in this map indicates conditions before the time-zone fix. The second column (when it appears) indicates conditions after the time-zone fix. The "After" map at the right shows the time zone fix. When we also go a step further and employ either permanent standard time or a Memorial to Labor Day DST, the five new bands of map colors respectively hover around 0%, 12%, 20%, 24%, and 29% of days having early morning darkness, typically peaking at 21%, 25%, 29%, 33%, and 37%. Even the new dark "After" map colors are a cure. With the DST/time-zone fix, they show only modest morning darkness. US Personal Income and stellar academic performance and key health categories have flourished at these percentages of darkness.

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According to your preference, the DST/time-zone fix, which we will often refer to in the following, can employ either permanent standard time or a short DST (such as a Memorial to Labor Day DST). Both have similar influence on early morning sunlight.

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Dark Mornings, Delay & the Out-of-Sync Story

Overly dark mornings in the United States are entirely caused by unnatural time zones, primarily in the Midwest (and points directly south of it), and by excessively long DSTs. The interactive maps here show that we tend to wrongly attribute late sunrises in much of the northern half of the U.S. to northerly position when, in fact, the late sunrises are caused by inappropriate time zones and long DSTs. When symmetric time zones and a short DST are employed, even regions near the Canadian border have sufficient winter morning sunlight of the kind now evidenced in the states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The interactive maps show the degree to which long DSTs adversely impact morning sunlight. To compare a short Memorial to Labor Day DST to the currently practiced Daylight Saving Time, move the cursor to various points on the maps. For these two DSTs, you will see the percentage of days having sunrises later than 7:00 AM. Simultaneously, the map Tables show more detailed data. The maps use sunrises after 7:00 AM as a measuring rod for gauging seasonal morning darkness. In this discussion, dark mornings are defined as those with a sunrise after 7:00 AM. Conveniently, this gauge also illustrates closeness to wake-up times, which are often about 7:00 to 7:20 AM. The higher the percentage of darkness, the more adverse the impact. Each map color approximately represents a range of similar percentages. At the median, in the United States, a fix combining symmetric time zones and a short DST (or permanent standard time) produces a winter season with a modest 2.3 months of sunrises later than 7:00 AM (19% of the year, 69 days), with no county exceeding 135 days (37% of the year, 4.4 months) of late sunrises. This median 2.3 months of reduced early morning sunlight is generally in line with expectations of what winter mornings should look like. Indeed, it is precisely what unadulterated median winter mornings do look like. In sharp contrast, the current DST and its time zones are now delivering two and a half times as many dark mornings! Delay at the core: Normally time-zone time is good enough, but when a time zone is corrupted, mischief takes hold. In each county, minutes of delay measure the extent to which a location is out of sync with time. When we look at a clock or watch, we instinctively assume it shows true time. Not so. We instead are seeing "time-zone" time. Accurate, proper time (local solar time) is buried within the time zone. At each location, the average minutes to this point is measured by minutes of delay shown in the map tables. This offset has wide impact and varies according to your location. It denotes the influence of the sun's light/dark cycle and can be readily determined by formula. Considering delay from a different angle: Delay measures proximity to being in sync. In each time zone there is an instant (local solar noon) when the sun is directly overhead at your location, and morning and afternoon hours are effectively equally long (the midday). When clock time is also at 12 o'clock noon, the position of the sun and clocks are in sync, and solar delay, as referred to here, is zero. When, by your watch, it takes longer for the sun to arrive at this midpoint, the delay is positive. A negative delay indicates that the sun arrives before your watch time indicates. With DST or an improper time zone, delay is always positive. The sun's delay and solar delay (often simply abbreviated as delay) all carry the same meaning. At all hours of the day, delay is present. In practice, locations seldom are in perfect sync. It is delay that by degree ultimately tells their out-of-sync story. The sun's delay reflects influence of location within a time zone. Any delay exceeding 30 minutes (roughly 58% dark mornings with the current DST) indicates a corrupted time zone. It is arguable which should be a gold standard, "delay" or "percentage of dark mornings." Take your pick. Delay indicates the degree to which a location is in sync with the sun's light/dark cycle. Percentage of dark mornings goes a step further to include both the influence of delay and Daylight Saving Time. Appropriate time-zone boundaries occur at a 30-minute delay. In a one-hour time zone (60 minutes, with two 30-minute sections), the delay should fall within a ±30 minute range. It frequently does not. As a consequence, we focus on the key players: DST and time zone.

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Formulas For Delay & For Estimating Percentage of Dark Mornings

If you would like to calculate delay or percentage of dark morning trendlines on your own, you can do so.

In a spreadsheet solar delay as used here equals (ABS(longitude)/15- ABS(time_zone_integer_hours_from_Greenwich)) *60

With the current DST, Percentage of Dark Mornings = 28.84+(0.94955*Solar_delay); Smoothed Data Standard Deviation 2.6; R2=0.977 28.88+(0.94756*Solar_delay); Raw Data Standard Deviation 5.4; R2=0.909

With a Memorial Day DST or Permanent Standard Time, Percentage of Dark Mornings =   16.98+(0.59967*Solar_delay); Smoothed Data Standard Deviation 2.2; R2=0.959 17.02+(0.59877*Solar_delay); Raw Data Standard Deviation 4.8; R2=0.835

Here some trendline points are calculated for you. Simply told, on the current DST trendline, delay vastly increases number of dark mornings. At these individual delay levels, the current DST on average consistently delivers 1.66x as many dark mornings as Permanent Standard Time or a short DST. Over and above Standard Time days, the "Additional Dark Days" column shows the number of additional mornings that in each year are now needlessly dark with the current DST. With permanent standard time or a short DST there are no additional dark mornings.

Percentage of Dark Mornings
Delay	Current DST	Permanent   Standard Time or   Short DST	Difference	Additional   Dark Days
0	29%	17%	12%	43
1	30%	18%	12%	45
2	31%	18%	13%	46
4	33%	19%	13%	48
6	35%	21%	14%	51
8	36%	22%	15%	53
10	38%	23%	15%	56
12	40%	24%	16%	59
14	42%	25%	17%	61
16	44%	27%	17%	64
18	46%	28%	18%	66
20	48%	29%	19%	69
22	50%	30%	20%	71
24	52%	31%	20%	74
26	54%	33%	21%	76
28	55%	34%	22%	79
30	57%	35%	22%	81
35	62%	38%	24%	88
40	67%	41%	26%	94
45	72%	44%	28%	101
50	76%	47%	29%	107
55	81%	50%	31%	113

Delays in excess of 30 are caused by improper time zones. With them and the current DST, the number of dark mornings can explode to more than 80%. The current DST is inequitable. From this table we see that the current DST requires living in low-delay regions (such as 8 minutes or less) in order to have few dark mornings, e.g., 36%. By this, it inescapably commits two-thirds of the nation to excessive morning darkness. This unnatural increase in morning darkness impacts circadian processes. In a more evenhanded fashion, at a wide variety of delays, both Permanent Standard Time and a short DST consistently deliver the appropriate and modest levels of morning darkness shown in the table. A short DST has slight influence. A long DST or an improper time zone can be ruinous.

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What About the Press? Improper time zones vs. DST

Via excessively long DSTs, 280 million people in the US are out of sync for nearly eight months of the year. Via improper time zones, fifty-three million people are out of sync for 100% of the year. While DST gets the press and public attention, these fifty-three million Americans in 900 counties are often ignored. Time zones are assumed to be a sleeper story. Not so. The story is a lot bigger and more important than just: "For it" … "Agin it."

Median Number of Dark Mornings
	Before Time-zone Fix	After Fix		Ratio: Before Time-Zone Fix/After Fix
Permanent Standard Time	99	69		1.43
Current DST	172	113		1.52
Ratio: Before DST Fix/After Fix	1.74	1.64		Simultaneously fixing both: 2.5

A Room Full of Elephants. There is only a slight difference between exclusively repairing time zones and exclusively eliminating long DSTs. As measured by changes in number of dark mornings, eliminating long DSTs has only a 14% advantage over repairing time zones [=1.74/1.52]. But repairing both together has a 2.5x advantage [=172/69]. As to the impact of time zones, by virtue of their 365-day length, they keep us out of sync 1.5x longer than the current DST [=365/239]. And then there is the question of choosing a DST length, a topic on which surprisingly no ink is spilled. Regional considerations also come into play. In the dead of winter, an inappropriate time zone increases winter morning coldness. Since the current DST is inactive during these coldest days of winter, it does not. For this reason, greatest payoff in northern regions often comes from fixing an inappropriate time zone. By a large margin, as measured by minutes of delay, the current DST and inappropriate time zones have put us out of sync with time. However you choose to make comparisons, the impacts are gargantuan, involving many millions of people. The misalignment is unnecessary.

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Out of Sync. The Impact.

As is well known, early morning darkness in many regions endangers children waiting for school buses in pitch black darkness. It impairs cognitive function in school. It harms health via circadian channels. It harms our economy. The adverse health and economic impact of large positive solar delays is often described as the "Western Edge Effect." This effect plays a role in reduced income, reduced life expectancy, increased body weight, diabetes, heart disease, shortened sleep, seasonal affective disorder, sleep disturbances, and mental & cognitive problems. These effects often persist long beyond when clocks are changed in the spring. Keep in mind that this delay is transformative. It creates new seasons of morning darkness that would not normally exist. Especially in view of circadian influence, delay could just as easily be called a harm index, where high values harm health and low values promote it. Do you know your delay? You can find your county's delay in the map Table. If you live in a dark red region of the first map, your total delay will be between 92 and 118 minutes during DST — on average 101 minutes (62% to 88% dark mornings). Small or negative delays are generally considered beneficial. The state of Maine, for example, at its northernmost border with Canada, has a negative solar delay (-26 minutes). This negative delay produces only 20% of sunrises after 7:00 AM. Via a rank-ordered analysis, we can see delay's impact in key health categories. Circadian impact is large. "More than 50% of all gene expression is under circadian control," as Michael Rosbash pointed out in his 2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine Lecture. In the early morning, circadian clocks throughout the body are reset in response to the sun’s light/dark cycle. Circadian hormones have widespread influence on how our bodies function. Folks who wear fitness devices and attend to their health in other ways often do so because they want optimum health. In the face of high delays, will they get it? Will those in the above dark red regions of the first map be at the top of their game?

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The Fiasco. A Failure to Crop the Wings.

"Abolish DST" … Or just, "Crop the Wings." The current DST is a misshapen bird. Its body (June through August) does the work. Its wings (March through April and September through October) do the mischief. Eastern positions within a time zone increase seasonal morning sunlight. Exacerbated by improper time zones, western positions decrease it. For example, when, on the map, you move the cursor due west from Washington, DC to Terre Haute in Vigo County, IN (both are nearly at the same latitude), you go from 38% of early mornings being dark in Washington to 70% being dark in Vigo. Washington and cities on the East Coast typically have far fewer dark mornings than experienced on the western edges of time zones. As for a fix, it is generally unknown that when its time zone is repaired, Vigo will have only 20% dark mornings – far better than the vast majority of counties on the East Coast, better than the 24% in Santa Barbara, CA, and about the same as at Harvard University and MIT. Similarly, it is generally unknown that when, instead of the current DST, permanent standard time or a short Memorial to Labor Day DST is also employed in Vigo, only 13% of mornings will be dark. Only three counties on the East Coast can now claim this honor. For Vigo to get there requires a two-step process: 1) repair time zone, and 2) trim DST’s wings to a short period. The three interactive maps on this page make this clear. Without the wings and without improper time zones, there is no inappropriate increase in morning darkness. As shown in this graph, quickly rising morning temperatures in Vigo come between 7:00 AM and 10:00 AM, with peaks occurring by about 4:00 PM. In Vigo, the current DST starts on March 10 with a typical three temperature sequence of: 35°, 41°, and 49°. The cool/cold wings shatter the myth that the current DST is predominantly a summertime experience. An improper time zone or a DST of any length makes early mornings darker and colder. When DST-induced darkness and coolness are confined to counteracting a short period that already has abundant early morning sunlight and high temperature, the DST appears to be passably harmless. But when, as with the current DST, this darkness and coolness is widely spread over many already cool and dark months, the percentage of dark and cold mornings escalate. The wings do the damage. The Memorial to Labor Day DST has no wings. At 7:00 AM, it begins and ends at 60° in Vigo. By contrast, the current DST has long wings. It contains 71 more Spring days (March to May) and 55 more Fall days (September to November) than the summertime Memorial to Labor Day DST. Why have the wings?? At a total 126 days, they are longer than the 113-day summertime DST. These 126 additional days of Daylight Saving Time raise obvious warning flags, given that they all occur during school months when early morning cognition and school bus safety are issues. By skirting harmful aspects of long DSTs and by having a low percentage of sunrises after 7:00 AM, a Memorial to Labor Day DST is a winner, as is permanent standard time. [Spreadsheet notes: Temperature, Vigo County, IN. US Hourly Climate Normals (2006-2020).]

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DST's Pitiful Wings, Waste & Destruction: Oct, Mar, Apr, Sep.

Glowing claims of the current DST's economic advantage are routinely made. Stats don't match. The frequent claim that the current DST drives retail sales is misleading. At best, the influence is small. The winged months of October, March, April, and September are some of the worst retail months … a 122-day DST waste. As for a possible countercyclical advantage, the retail oscillation that might prove useful is to begin a DST at the rare peak on or about May 20. Yes, there are seasonal patterns, but month to month deviations are commonly small without a pattern sufficient to claim that the current DST improved the economy. We should not be surprised. In the fourth quarter of 2023, retail constituted a mere 6.3 percent of GDP. Tail now wags dog.

Ranked Retail Sales Relative to Average Month
Month	Rank	1993-2019	DST #3, 1993-2006	DST #4, 2007-2019
Dec	1	24.5%	28.4%	19.9%
Nov	2	3.6%	3.7%	3.5%
May	3	2.7%	1.8%	3.7%
Aug	4	1.5%	1.2%	1.8%
Jun	5	-0.6%	-1.1%	0.0%
Oct	6	-0.8%	-0.8%	-1.0%
Jul	7	-1.0%	-1.7%	-0.1%
Mar	8	-1.8%	-3.3%	-1.0%
Apr	9	-2.9%	-3.2%	-2.6%
Sep	10	-4.5%	-4.4%	-4.6%
Jan	11	-10.3%	-11.0%	-9.5%
Feb	12	-12.5%	-13.2%	-11.5%
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Oct, Mar, Apr, Sep		-2.5%	-2.9%	-2.3%
Aug, Jun, Jul		0.0%	-0.5%	0.6%

[Spreadsheet notes: SRS1 Cubic Spline converts centered monthly retail sales to daily rates.]

Retail sales. Tip of iceberg. Most economic activity occurs entirely outside the retail sector.  90% of nonfarm employees produce 94% of GDP. Much productive work occurs during morning hours. Via circadian channels, appropriate exposure to early morning sunlight influences health, alertness, mood, and cognitive abilities. A failure to take advantage of morning alertness is a foregone opportunity. To compromise morning hours of sunlight by indiscriminately taking one hour from them, and thereby increasing morning darkness, comes at a large expense to the economy. Alertness and quality of decision-making during these hours are crucial for economic success.

[Spreadsheet notes: In the first graph, repaired time zones are shown at minutes of delay existing prior to the fix. In the second graph, 3,093 counties, current DST and time zones. Based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Pre-COVID database, Social Vulnerability Index 2018. Total_Personal_Income= Per_Capita_Personal_Income *Population. Data sorted to Percent_Days. Index= Centered rolling 200-point median/ column_median* 100. Index smoothed on 30-point centered moving average. Not required here but used elsewhere: Proper Delay= MOD(ABS(longitude) *4+30,60)-30.] As in the formulas, in the above first graph there is a wide spread between the current DST and a Memorial to Labor Day DST. The percentage of days of early morning darkness is closely tied to solar delay and exacerbated by DST length. This graph illustrates the relationship between being out of sync with time at your location and the resulting percentage of dark mornings. It is wrong to consider being out of sync as a physiologic adjustment that only applies during a single day. The extent to which your location is out of sync defines patterns of sunlight and the amount of seasonal morning darkness that you and your neighbors live with, year after year. In the second graph, peak economic performance is associated with percentage of days with early morning darkness. The approximate breaking point for success occurs at 51% of mornings being dark. Before that point, great successes occur. After it, no bursts of favorable economic tendencies appear. At high doses of gloomy mornings, median index values in excess of 100 rarely happen. Peaks at 30%, 38%, and 46%. Red flag at 51%: At higher than 51% dark early mornings, economic measures typically range from substandard to punishingly destructive. Areas to the right of the improper time zone marker are especially hard hit. Population data shows a decline with a high percentage of gloomy mornings — perhaps nice places avoided because their mornings were made less attractive than in the majority of the nation. It is striking when studying the U.S. News & World Report’s 2024 Healthiest Communities list (when using a metric that equally values equity, vitality, and overall rank) how many nice, unrecognized midwestern counties percolate to the top. Entire regions are harmed by the fiction that manipulating DST and time zones far from their natural conditions is beneficial when, in fact, the data shows that the economic impact is devastating.

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Dark Mornings Reduce Your Home's Value

Folks pay a premium for homes with low delays and few dark mornings. To the surprise of most of us, as seen in the graph, your home tends to be worth more when it is at a location with few dark mornings and its value suffers when many early mornings are dark. The greater the percentage of dark mornings, the greater the harm. Under natural conditions at the median about 19% of mornings are dark. When morning darkness brought on by improper time zones and long DSTs greatly exceed this figure, the trendline goes south, at an extreme point reducing median value by about $75,000. The reduction in value is not magic. The reasons for the decline become increasingly clear as we discuss the impact of dark mornings. The loss is pointless. After all, before long DSTs and improper time zones were invented, dark mornings, without exception, were absolutely capped at 37% for all Americans. Locked at this 37% of dark mornings shown in the graph, the harm is removed and trendline price differences are acceptably small.

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University Rankings Uncover Underbelly of DST & Time Zones

U.S. News & World Report’s University Rankings provide a fine opportunity to evaluate low percentage of dark mornings at high-ranked universities. When we compare dark mornings in these microcosms of excellence to the 3,000 US counties, we see vast differences. These premier institutions have far fewer dark mornings than the general population. As to a university's purpose, cognition and maturation are central to the enterprise. Under circadian influence, maturation of the brain will continue until about age 25. With an eye toward determining levels of morning sunlight appropriate for cognition, university rankings are important to study. They seem to indicate that fewer dark mornings contribute to academic success. In the graph, you see a huge spread between the Top 10 universities and the common-case 3,000 counties. The Table shows that the current DST and its time zones, at the median, produce 47% dark mornings.

Percentile:	2.5%	5.0%	10.0%	20.0%	30.0%	40.0%	Median   50.0 %	60.0%	70.0%	80.0%	90.0%	95.0%	97.5%
Percentage of Dark Mornings
Time Zone/DST Fix	0%	0%	0%	0%	10%	15%	19%	22%	25%	28%	31%	33%	34%
Top 10	9%	9%	9%	10%	21%	23%	23%	28%	30%	37%	38%	42%	42%
Top 25	9%	10%	13%	21%	23%	24%	30%	37%	38%	46%	50%	60%	66%
Top 100	9%	10%	16%	23%	23%	28%	30%	38%	43%	50%	60%	65%	67%
All Counties, % Dark	3%	8%	20%	30%	36%	41%	47%	53%	58%	62%	65%	68%	70%
Minutes of Delay
Time Zone/DST Fix	-29	-27	-25	-20	-14	-7	0	6	12	18	25	27	29
Top 10	-16	-16	-16	-15	-10	-8	-4	-1	2	7	9	12	14
Top 25	-16	-15	-14	-10	-8	-5	1	7	9	16	21	32	39
Top 100	-16	-15	-11	-8	-4	0	2	8	13	22	32	38	44
All Counties, Delay	-16	-13	-8	-1	5	11	18	24	30	35	40	44	47

[Spreadsheet notes: Get ranked-order data and location. Convert location to longitude. By formula convert longitude to minutes of delay. Convert minutes of delay to percentage of dark mornings using already established delay to percent relationships. Use Excel percentile formula to produce graph and table. Data related to the fix come directly from original computer program. Note: In a perfectly symmetric ±30 time zone, median delay is zero. Median delay at "Time Zone/DST Fix" comes close to this.] A median percentage of darkness at 23% or less appears to be conducive to outstanding performance. A median higher than 30% seems to impede excellence. Disrupting circadian rhythms that influence intelligence is harmful. Meanwhile, in the US, only 20% of us live in zones that appear to be conducive to excellence by having fewer than 30% dark mornings. In a far more appropriate fashion, at the median the Top 10 universities operate at a mere 23% dark mornings. Commendable yes. But not remarkable!  More favorably, repairing time zones and DST gives us a median 19% dark mornings. With this, the entire nation, not just a select few universities, can have a low level of median morning darkness that is conducive to enhanced cognition.

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Top Ranked Health … Payoff for being in sync, the 8 minute median

The influence of delay and morning sunlight may be subliminal and seemingly of slight influence, but that initial impression is misleading. Just as rankings uncover minutes of delay at universities, ranking health categories also can uncover median delays. In diverse health classifications, top performance is widespread at low median delays and few dark mornings. Being in sync matters. Morning sunlight is a key to health. First thing in the morning it resets body clocks. This is done daily. By comparison to artificial light, sunlight is especially effective because it is many times more potent. Dark mornings corrupt the resets. Delay rules. With this simple handle, you can see the beneficial impact of morning sunlight. In this race, low delays are winners; high delays, losers. Like the Western Edge Effect, the lower the delay at your location, the more beneficial the impact. Quickly put: You get best circadian performance the closer you are to being in sync, which is to say, your location has a low delay. Beneficial circadian impact from the sun's light/dark cycle is surprisingly easy to spot. All we need to do is to look at the median delay in a ranked category. In numerous categories, this table tells what otherwise would be a complex story. Superior performance (Top 250 and lower) has a low median delay and increased morning sunlight, e.g., a delay that is 8 or lower as highlighted in the table. The emphasis is on the Top 250. It provides a high-performance focus and an adequately large sample size. The further away delay is from this point, the weaker its grip. It is the beneficial influence of being in sync (low delays) that carries the weight. Adverse performance (at Top 1500 and higher) has a high median delay and reduced morning sunlight. Count yourself lucky if you live at a location with a low delay, especially if you are less than a shown median. Using the median at Top 250 as an example: In a group of 250 counties, 125 counties are beneath the median; 125, above it. As such, the median is suggestive but does not by itself indicate a formulaic relationship. In each category, the table shows median delays which now exist. By gradation, median delays in the table illustrate requirements for being suitably in sync at a range of rankings. As shown, requirements differ according to rank and category.

Each Health Category Shown in Rank Order, Top 50 to Top 3000. Corresponding Median Delays Shown at Each Level.
	Obesity	Diabetes	Activity LPA	Income	Smoking	Heart	Stroke	Disability	Average Combo 8	Mobility	General Health	Kidney	Cognition	No Diploma	Poverty	Depres- sion	Cancer	RND
Top 50	7	3	6	5	9	8	8	8	6.7	9	8	10	10	9	11	27	31	11
Top 100	4	1	8	7	8	8	8	8	6.4	8	8	4	10	13	12	27	31	14
Top 250	3	5	8	8	8	8	8	8	7.0	9	9	9	12	14	14	25	15	18
Top 500	7	10	9	9	9	10	11	11	9.4	11	12	13	13	14	15	20	20	19
Top 750	8	11	11	12	12	11	13	12	11.2	12	13	14	14	15	15	20	17	18
Mediocre Top 1500	13	14	15	15	15	14	15	17	14.8	16	15	14	17	16	17	16	16	18
Top 3000	17	17	17	17	17	17	17	17	17.0	17	17	17	17	17	17	17	17	18
Ratio	2.4	1.7	2.0	1.9	1.9	1.8	1.5	1.5	1.8	1.5	1.4	1.3	1.4	1.2	1.1	0.9	0.9	0.9

[Spreadsheet notes: Used CDC Places database and heading notes. For per capita personal income, diploma, and poverty used CDC Social Vulnerability Index 2018. In Excel matched delays with location. Sorted on CDC adjusted values. Calculated delay medians for counties at 50, 250, 500, 750, 1500, and 3000 group sizes. The RND column was created by putting delays in random order and then with the Excel Median function determining medians for Top ranks. The data in other columns derived their strength by the link between location and delay. Note: Statistical variability tends to be greatest in small sample sizes as evidenced by the RND column. In graph, centered rolling 200-point median, smoothed on 30-point centered moving average.] Obesity, Diabetes, Activity, Per Capita Personal Income, Heart, Stroke and other categories typically have median delays of 8 minutes or less in Top 250 ranked counties. This favorable performance often occurring at such delays and lower in the first eight categories (Average Combo 8) strongly suggests that circadian influence is playing a broad role in many categories. The single message that becomes increasingly clear is that the sun's delay is having influence in numerous areas of daily life that are important. This is the way the table works: Each Top 50 rank contains the most advantageous characteristics in its category. Separately, its delay is the median of all its fifty counties. In this way, at each rank, median delay (the degree that a location is out of sync) is identified. At each subsequent rank, median delay varies because that rank is less selective, because individual delays differ according to location, and because a larger number of data points are included. The pattern is instructive. When within a category there is a beneficial relationship, median delay increases when going from Top 50 to Top 3000 counties. If on the contrary there had been no influence, results would have looked more like the RND column. With this we have a quick, preliminary indicator of the influence of the sun's light/dark cycle. Strength of the patterns is often indicated by a high Top 3000/Top 500 ratio. Ratios higher than 1 tend to indicate a positive relationship. While many categories are favorably influenced by morning sunlight, all are not. Ratios lower than 1, or closely approaching 1, suggest randomness or a contrary relationship. Depression, Cancer, and the RND column (randomized delays) are examples of this. With respect to cancer's lack of response to sunlight by this measurement, it has been pointed out elsewhere that cancer mortality shows no substantial seasonality. The method is simple, sensitive, and strong. Here, by ratio, obesity is the highest ranked category for beneficial response to being in sync with the sun's light/dark cycle. Whether you look to sources on the web, on YouTube, or in scholarly literature, you will also find a potent link between obesity and circadian rhythms. We see in the graph that with very low delays the percentage of obesity is low, but this percentage sharply increases with increasing delays and the reduced morning sunlight that comes with them. Instinctively, it is surprising that a component like delay would have such a formidable influence on body weight. Along these lines, studies show morning sunlight does influence weight gain. Ratios in the table also illustrate relative strength in other categories. With the table you can get an intuitive feel for which health components tend to be most influenced by morning sunlight. In the table we see median delay strongly acting on per capita personal income (high ratio) and to a lesser extent (low ratios) on no high school diploma and poverty, which are better observed elsewhere. Cognition at an intermediate ratio of 1.4 brings to mind the previously discussed college rankings. It is especially interesting that leisure-time physical activity (LPA), the second highest ratio, shows such a strong pattern of low median delays. This flies in the face of the contention that DST increases physical activity by creating an extra hour of afternoon sunlight. The pattern here indicates that low delays and more morning sunlight increase the amount of leisure-time physical activity!  This perhaps is not such a surprise. Many components which create adverse headwinds for physical activity (obesity, reduced general health, et cetera) are augmented by the current DST's high delays and reduced morning sunlight. High delays come hand-in-hand with poorer outcomes. From the perspective of health and personal income, long DSTs and improper time zones are a catastrophe. Top performing ranks have low delays. By living at a low delay location, a person can enjoy benefits in widespread categories. On the other hand, someone who lives in a high-delay area does not enjoy this broad range of opportunity. They are stuck without equal ability to achieve high rank in a wide variety of categories. As illustrated in the graph, with the current DST and time zones, now only 34% of counties can deliver 8-minute delays. We are hamstrung. Fortunately, with a DST/time-zone fix, 63% of counties can easily deliver 8-minute delays. If, for a county, your objective in a category was, for example, to perform at the Top 250 level (the top 8%) in many categories, you typically would want your location to have a median delay equal to or less than the one shown in the table — an 8 minute delay and 36% dark mornings seemingly being an adequate objective in many categories. To get to this point often requires a time-zone/DST fix. You see, delay is caused by your location. Beyond this, major changes in delay and features of the light/dark cycle must come from legislated components, specifically: time zones and DSTs.

Perpetuating DST Wings and Corrupted Time Zones.
For Top Performance Must Dump Them

To perform at a Top 250 level often requires that your location have a delay of 8 and 36% dark mornings. We need to be clear. Low delays like 8 can be required for a Top 250 level of superior performance. Yet, with current time zones and DST, two-thirds of all counties are now completely unable!! to get down to the 8-delay and the 36% point, despite Top 250 levels of performance often requiring it. With this, they are more likely to be stuck at lower performance levels indicated in the table. Perpetuating DST wings and corrupted time zones prevents breaking through the 8-delay, 36%-barrier. In contrast, with the wings and corrupted time zones removed, literally every American has dark mornings capped at a 37% maximum, effectively equal to the current median 8-delay's 36%. Details aside, being capped at 37% is the safe position. It works. It employs the same data used in the interactive maps. This sea change in many categories provides increased opportunity for a Top 250 level performance for all Americans, not just the lucky ones now living at locations with an 8-delay median or lower. Plain, simple, and crucial. The fine edge of reason is whether to have: More Top 250 Level Health, or Wings and Corrupted Time Zones. To choose the former looks like a winner.

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Delay Reduces Life Expectancy

With a delay of 8, we have tip top life expectancy. With high delays, it is in the dumps. The previous table concentrated on delay's impact in health categories. Here we expand the picture to see life expectancy worsening with increasing delays, especially very high delays. The first part of this table uses the same techniques as in the health rankings. But here we drill down into each segment, where we find the meat of the matter. The potency of the full range of life-expectancy delays in the table here is consistent with the General Health ratio of 1.4 in the previous ranked health categories.

Life Expectancy & Delay
Rank	Median Delay		Segment	Life Expectancy   Median	Reduction   Per Step	Median Delay
Top 50	8		Top 50	83.7		8
Top 100	9		Top 50 to 100	82.5	1.3	10
Top 250	10		Top 100 to 250	81.5	1.0	12
Top 500	12		Top 250 to 500	80.5	1.0	15
Top 750	12		Top 500 to 750	79.6	0.9	13
Mediocre Top 1500	15		Top 750 to 1500	78.5	1.1	17
Top 3000	17		Top 1500 to 3000	75.8	2.7	20
Ratio	1.4

For the 165 million people at segment delays 17 and 20 in the table, life expectancies plummet. Hand-in-hand high delays come with reduced longevity. Again, high delays coming from corrupted time zones & the current DST contribute to an unfavorable outcome.

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Flipping the Incline … Low Delays Grow Population

Fully half the counties in the United States are small counties with populations less than 26 k (median delay 17.5), totaling 18 million people. The data shows that the current DST and its time zones now thwart their growth. Happily and surprisingly, circadian influence may be sufficient to produce foundational changes in small-county economic growth. Using data from the interactive maps, this table employs techniques similar to the life-expectancy rankings.

Ranked Population & Delay
Rank	Median Delay		Segment	Median Population	Population Range	Median Delay
Top 50	14		Top 50	1,481 k	million to 10 million	14*
Top 100	8		Top 50 to 100	820 k	664 k to 958 k	7
Top 250	8		Top 100 to 250	402 k	272 k to 664 k	10
Top 500	11		Top 250 to 500	172 k	127 k to 272 k	13
Top 750	13		Top 500 to 750	95 k	72 k to 127 k	16
Mediocre Top 1500	15		Top 750 to 1500	42 k	27 k to 72 k	17
Top 3000	17		Top 1500 to 3000	11 k	2 k to 27 k	21
Ratio	1.5

For counties with populations less than a million, low median delays exist at high populations and high median delays exist at low populations. The differences are dramatic. A large county population (664 k to 958 k) has a low median delay of 7. A small county population (2 k to 27 k) has a high median delay of 21 — three times greater. With each step to a smaller population size, median delays (the degree to which locations are out of sync) increase: 7, 10, 13, 16, 17, 21. Each of these steps to less favorable median delays come with reduced county populations. High population counties, by their size and delay, show a preference for living in low delay counties. Voting with their feet, folks may have been in part instinctively avoiding excessive dark & cold mornings and other direct and indirect unwholesome aspects of high-delay counties, thus congregating in larger low-delay counties. Independent of cause, the graphs show a migration incline moving from low to high population counties, from high delay to low delay, and from more dark mornings to fewer dark mornings. These reflect real world conditions that now exist. In the table and graphs, population is concentrated in large counties. The first graph shows a tendency toward low median delays at high county populations and very low populations at very high, way-out-of-sync median delays. Unknowingly the real estate business has been hammered by these high delays. Hand-in-hand, percentage of dark mornings are also linked to population size, as shown in the first curve in the second chart. Here, high delays and high percentage of dark mornings are inimical to population growth. Comparing curves, at the lowest 3 k population trendline measurements, dark mornings go from 53% to 17.5%. In the real world, moves like this make a difference. Remedy resides in structure. The nation's counties are divided into halves. The prosperous counties tend to be larger than the 26 k midpoint. The remainder consists of many very small counties, half of all counties. Similar to trendlines shown in the first two curves, potential migration inclines leading to prosperity in high population counties deplete these already small counties. So far we have been unintentionally locked into this approach, depleting the small to grow the large. To grow the small requires an entirely different tactic. The third curve contributes to fixing it. It massively reduces dark mornings for all counties. The fix flips the upward incline to a downward one. Its slightly downward incline gives an additional boost to low population counties. For all counties, it entirely removes direct or indirect unwholesome high-delay impact. It precisely shows population and percent of dark mornings conditions that exist at the instant we repair time zones and remove long DSTs. The difference is immense. Flipping the incline grows, not drains, small counties. With the flip, all counties, this time including small ones, are better able to thrive and grow.

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Top US Cities Through Circadian Eyes

Livability.com has developed a list of the 100 best small to mid-sized US cities. Their analysis is confined to cities having median home values of $500,000 or less and populations between 75,000 and 500,000. Their emphasis is on quality of life and affordability. In sum, their highly discriminating process identifies exceptionally nice US cities, which, as we will see, have slightly lower delays and fewer dark mornings than the common case.

Percentile:	2.5%	5.0%	10.0%	20.0%	30.0%	40.0%	50.0%   Median	60.0%	70.0%	80.0%	90.0%	95.0%	97.5%
Delay
Top 50	-14	-13	-9	-3	0	4	10.0	13	21	29	34	44	45
Top 100	-16	-14	-13	-6	-1	6	10.0	14	21	29	36	44	46
Common Case  Top 3000	-16	-13	-8	-1	5	11	18.0	24	30	35	40	44	47
Percentage of Dark Mornings
Top 50	9%	21%	25%	28%	31%	34%	41.0%	46%	49%	57%	60%	66%	67%
Top 100	3%	18%	24%	28%	32%	36%	42.5%	45%	49%	58%	64%	67%	68%
Common Case Top 3000	3%	8%	20%	30%	36%	41%	47.0%	53%	58%	62%	65%	68%	70%

Because they are decidedly more desirable than the average, these cities are excellent for analysis. We find that they, too, unwittingly benefit from lower delays and fewer dark mornings. At the Top 50 level, their median delay is 8 minutes less and their percentage of dark mornings is 6% lower than the common case. Just as in health rankings, lower delays and fewer dark mornings for cities tend to come hand-in-hand with superior performance. It is of interest that the 150 counties in the prior Top 100 to 250 group have a 10-delay as do the 100 select cities here. The low delay and bright mornings may well have been contributing to these cities being attractive. With low delays, the real-estate mantra — "Location, Location, Location" — seems to carry additional weight. Perhaps this is not such a surprise. In this graph, we also see home values linked to delay and dark mornings. As delays increase home values decline. This suggests that delays are directly or indirectly perceived and that low delay's desirable consequences are highly valued.

Rank	Median Delay		Segment	Median Delay	Range Median Home Value
Top 50	8		Top 50	8	$1,512,200 to $829,600
Top 100	7		Top 50 to 100	4	$829,600 to $725,500
Top 250	3		Top 100 to 250	1.5	$725,500 to $568,500
Top 500	7		Top 250 to 500	10	$568,500 to $456,700
Top 750	8		Top 500 to 750	10	$456,700 to $392,100
Top 1500	10		Top 750 to 1500	16	$392,100 to $293,700
Top 3000	13		Top 1500 to 3000	18	$293,700 to $52,700

With the current DST and time zones, the home value decline is a downstream effect resulting from the extent to which we are out of sync. Delay derives its power from the many, not the few. Its impact is widespread including among others, a dozen key categories (General Health, Life Expectancy, Obesity, Stroke, Diabetes, Cognition, Heart, Personal Income, Leisure-Time Physical Activity, Disability, Kidney, and Smoking). All these together give it power. When delay impacts many areas, its combined influence is more likely to be perceived and able to influence home values. Once perceived, home buying decisions tend to be influenced by the mélange of components – home values declining as delay and dark mornings increase. For this reason, when measured by delay and percentage of dark mornings, the threshold of perception falls within a measurable range. Identical to the delays and dark mornings in the migration incline, in the first table in this section it seems that we are able to perceive the difference between median 10-delay and 18-delay cities, as well as the difference between 41%-dark-morning and 47%-dark-morning cities. We call the former Top Cities.

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Harris/Trump Vote Ratio Linked to Being in Sync

Astonishingly, an exceptionally tight relationship exists between vote ratio and delay. The sun's light/dark cycle and circadian impact on mood and behavior, as represented by delay, appear to have had influence by contributing to a convergence of adverse conditions. To win, the vote ratio shown in the graph must exceed one. Here, vote ratio = Harris_vote/Trump_vote count. As shown in the graph and table, with many dark mornings, with reduced per capita income, and with high delays Trump prevailed, winning all Top 500+ segments shown in the table. Being out of sync, as evidenced by high delays and a high percentage of dark mornings, put a finger of adversity on the scale. Median delays of 17 and 23 at "Top 750 to 1500" and above being especially harmful. Harris won only 400 of 3,000 counties. Wide median spreads exist between Harris and Trump locations:
Harris    8-delay, 39% dark mornings, and $30,704 per capita income in 400 counties.
Trump 21-delay, 50% dark mornings, and $25,941 per capita income in 2,600 counties. Even outside the context of an election, low delays and few dark mornings are imperative. As seen in the table's "After Fix" column, dark mornings can be easily limited to a safe, narrow band of median dark mornings lower than 28% – evenhanded play ... adverse headwinds removed.

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DST Choices

Options Summary

DST options are effectively active for none, 1/3, 1/2, 2/3, or all of the year.

#1 No DST

Permanent Standard Time

#2 Memorial to Labor Day DST

May 20 - Sep 9, 113 Days, 31% of year

#3 1966 to 2006 DST

Apr 24 - Oct 30, 190 Days, 52% of year

#4 Current DST

Mar 10 - Nov 3, 239 Days, 65% of year

#5 Proposed Permanent DST

100% of year

DSTs were initially justified as wartime exigencies. In the US they have morphed into substantially a permanent creature. This is their background: Aiming to alleviate hardships due to wartime coal shortages and air-raid blackouts, on April 30, 1916 during World War I, Germany introduced the first DST. In response, twenty-one days later (May 21, 1916) the UK began its DST. Ten and a half months later (April 6, 1917), the US declared war on Germany. Eleven months later during WWI (March 19, 1918), the US employed its first DST, this time for seven months. During WWII, twenty-four years later (February 9, 1942) the US again employed a DST (then called "War Time"), this time for three and a half years. An additional twenty-four years later (April 13, 1966), the US employed its first nationwide peacetime DST. Forty-one years later (March 11, 2007) the length of this DST was increased by seven weeks. Initially created as a war exigency, we have since had nation-wide, peacetime DSTs for 58 years. These have not been structured to meet current peacetime needs.

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Memorial to Labor Day DST: The Unofficial Start and End of Summer

Prior to the 1966 Uniform Time Act, Iowa and Minnesota practiced a Memorial to Labor Day DST. The Congressional Record shows that as late as 1985, the American Farm Bureau policy was, "We support legislation limiting daylight saving time to the period between Memorial Day and Labor Day." And, "We continue to support the right of a state to exempt itself from daylight saving time." The old Farm Bureau policy was wise. Its options were as prudent then, as they are today. Let’s look at median western-edge times prior to applying a long or short DST. In the following table, “Proximity” is sunrise relative to a 7:00 AM wake-up. For a sunrise to stay clear of a 7:00 AM wake-up, proximity at the start of the DST must exceed 60 minutes. A Memorial to Labor Day DST is safely wide of this mark. Its proximity is at 1:45 hours. Sunrise is at 5:51 AM. Mornings are long, 7:11 hours. By this time of the year, morning sunlight is changing very slowly. It will take 32 days for sunrise to occur 8 minutes earlier. This DST provides plenty of early morning sunlight for circadian entrainment. To initiate a DST on May 20 will reduce morning hours by only a modest 14%. Many of those hours occur when we are fast asleep.

# Day	Date	Event	Sunrise	Morning Hours	DST % of Hours	Proximity
1	Jan 1	New Year	7:46 AM	4:46	21%	-0:46
69	Mar 10	Current DST Start	6:48 AM	5:51	17%	0:11
140	May 20	Memorial Day	5:14 AM	7:11	14%	1:45
172	Jun 21	Longest Morning	5:06 AM	7:25	13%	1:53
252	Sep 9	Labor Day	6:06 AM	6:20	16%	0:53
308	Nov 4	Current DST End	6:58 AM	5:15	19%	0:02

While we sleep, it makes good use of some of the abundant May 20th very early morning hours. We still have 6:11 morning hours of sunlight remaining after one hour is taken away for a Memorial to Labor Day DST. Similarly, after exiting it in September, 6:20 hours of morning sunlight remain. With an eye toward practicality, it begins a week before and ends the week after heavy holiday transportation demands. Perhaps paramount for many, it happily blends with the tradition of Memorial Day being the unofficial start of summer and Labor Day being the unofficial end of summer — a bona fide summertime DST. An opportunity to catch the wave at the instant of high retail sales, high resilience/low death rates, a cresting of sunlight hours, and a celebration of summer. By contrast, the current DST March 10 start date fails on all points. Sunrise, late. Morning sunlight hours, short. Morning sunlight, changing rapidly. Proximity to sleep hours, harmful. High seasonal mortality. No social buoyancy. Because of the 1966 Uniform Time Act and long DSTs, we never experienced in our lifetimes the natural unfolding of spring. With the prior gradual increase in sunlight, we safely and pleasurably could adapt over a period of about 55 days to 60-minute natural increases in morning sunlight. Instead, long DSTs gave us a three-part spring cycle:

• adjust (adapt to a 60-minute increase in morning sunlight over about 55 days)
• reverse (in one day take away those 60 minutes of morning sunlight)
• adjust again (try to recover)

It is no wonder that changing clocks became hateful.

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Time Zone Peril

Longitude and time march in lockstep, 4 minutes for each degree of longitude. Time zones began as useful approximations to replace calculating time based on the sun's position at each location. Though they began in this honest fashion, they have since been manipulated far from this sensible starting point. A time-zone fix is imperative. Eastern and Central Time zones have massively shifted westward since they were initially drawn in 1883 — about 378 miles from an appropriate point. Yet, as the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reports, in the past 20 years, only 15 counties have changed. These 378 miles are not pulled out of thin air. At the median latitude for US counties (38.3°), each minute of delay in a time zone translates to 13.5 miles. At a 58-minute delay, the time zone is 28 minutes longer than the appropriate 30-minute maximum. Thus, the 378 miles [= 28*13.5]. Especially in the northern US, waking up an hour earlier than necessary because of an improper time zone hits hard on cold winter mornings. Applying an inappropriate time zone at the county level is more injurious than a DST. Like a DST, it increases delay by 60 minutes, but it is unremitting — continuously active for 365 days of the year. In a symmetric one-hour time zone, solar delays are limited to a ±30 minute range. In practice, US time zones are now profoundly lopsided. They strongly favor the western edge. At its most extreme points, the Eastern time-zone range of solar delays is approximately +57 to -29 minutes; Central Time, +58 to -20; Mountain Time, +50 to -17; and Pacific Time, +16 to -20. With the current DST and time zones, these delays translate to percentage of dark mornings: Eastern Time: 70% to 14%; Central Time, 88% to 2%; Mountain Time, 67% to 23%; and Pacific Time, 50% to 1%. These differences are often huge. Living in gloomy mornings is now the unnecessary result of haphazard luck.

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Fixing It

Most countries don’t observe daylight saving time. DST fix: Arizona and Hawaii have rejected Daylight Saving Time. 15 U.S. Code § 260a allows any state to go on Permanent Standard Time within its borders without congressional action. Eliminating Daylight Saving Time reduces delay by 60 minutes. This can be readily accomplished in any state without congressional action. By contrast, to change a DST requires congressional action. Thus, to choose a short Memorial to Labor Day DST requires congressional action. In most cases, these two options yield about the same percentage of sunrises after 7:00 AM. Scholarly studies have not addressed attributes of a short Memorial to Labor Day DST.

Wikipedia indicates that:
Permanent standard time is considered by circadian health researchers and safety experts worldwide to be the best option for health, safety, schools, and economy, including the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, National Sleep Foundation, American College of Chest Physicians, National Safety Council, American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Canadian Sleep Society, World Sleep Society, Society for Research on Biological Rhythms, and several state sleep societies. Permanent standard time is supported by advocates for school children, including the National PTA, National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, National School Boards Association, and Start School Later. They cite both the health benefits of circadian alignment, and the safety advantages regarding morning commutes.

Time Zone fix: As shown in the first map, time in the United States is a hodgepodge without uniformity or order. The old bedrocks on which US time stands (to "promote the adoption and observance of uniform time within the standard time zones"; 1918, 1919, 1966), now 58 to 106 years old, have not delivered an orderly or uniform time. What they have delivered is a massively adulterated time. Time zones are defined at county levels named in the map tables. There are two ways an area can be moved from one time zone to another: by Federal statute or by Secretary of Transportation regulation. The dark red regions in the first map have long solar delays caused by ancient time-zone choices for western-edge counties. Changing time zones that now apply would place these counties in an enviable position — a move from the darkest first map color to the lightest, a 60-minute reduction in delay. Quick Local fix: For DST rejectionists, experiments to maintain sync with solar time at home by setting sundials, clocks, and watches to local solar time and using DST time elsewhere are occasionally possible. When stuck in untenable circumstances, this option can be useful, if not pleasant. With all the gadgets of modern life the lowly sundial, set to local solar time, provides a nice connection with a higher authority. The honest sun. When its shadow strikes 12, we have an apt reminder that half the day is done and another half awaits us. This, punctuated with lunch at solar noon, provides a reliable regularity, a perceived as well as an unconscious orderliness as the day unfolds. Bedside & table lamps and mechanical timers can provide a consistent, unobtrusive year-round assist for maintaining sync. [Warm 4 watt incandescent, candelabra E12 bulb for dim light, 7 watt for brighter light.] The interval between dinner and sleep is important for sleep quality and general health. Timer set to turn on: 1) for the appropriate lunch hour, and 2) during the dinner-to-bedtime period (for example, 5:30 PM to 10:30 PM) can provide sufficient cues to nudge us into an appropriate mealtime and sleep routine. Begin meal when light turns on. Head to bed when light turns off at night. The evening light-on period provides warm, dim lighting in preparation for sleep and does double duty as a night light.

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Teenagers

As shown here, the CDC recommended hours of sleep change with age. Evidence indicates that teenagers need considerably more sleep than fully matured adult brains.

Age	Recommended   Hours Sleep
1–2	11–14
3–5	10–13
6–12	9–12
13–18	8–10
18–25	7-9
26–64	7–9
65+	7–8

Teenagers particularly are harmed by long DSTs and inappropriate time zones. Most now get only about 6.5-7.5 hours sleep per night – far less than their recommended hours. Their body clocks, influenced by DST and time zones, naturally shift to make them feel tired later in the evening, but early school starts do not enable them to sleep in the mornings. The impact of sleep on teenage cognition is well established.

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Bedtime for Night Owl??

A Google AI overview of Night Owls reads:

" 'Lark' and 'owl' are terms used to describe people's chronotypes, or their typical bedtime and wake-up times. Larks are people who go to bed before 11 PM and wake up before 8 AM, while owls are people who go to bed at or after 11 PM and wake up at or after 8 AM. …"

Bedtime & Night Owl
Proper   Standard Time	DST Time	DST Plus Improper   Time Zone
8:00 PM	9:00 PM	10:00 PM
8:30 PM	9:30 PM	10:30 PM
9:00 PM	10:00 PM	11:00 PM
9:30 PM	10:30 PM	11:30 PM
10:00 PM	11:00 PM	12:00 AM
10:30 PM	11:30 PM	12:30 AM
11:00 PM	12:00 AM	1:00 AM
11:30 PM	12:30 AM	1:30 AM
12:00 AM	1:00 AM	2:00 AM

Now, let's consider your preferred time to go to bed in a world in which there are no DSTs or improper time zones. Let's say in this hypothetically pure world, your preferred time for shut-eye is an unadulterated proper time of 10:30 PM. If these circumstances are seen from a DST perspective, your preferred bedtime instead would appear to be 11:30 PM, a Night Owl. From a perspective of DST combined with an improper time zone, your preferred bedtime would appear to be even later, 12:30 AM, again a Night Owl. Your modest and sensible intention of simply choosing a proper 10:30 PM bedtime calls you a Night Owl in either of these two cases. The term Night Owl may be saying something about social time, but it is on less firm ground when it comes to fundamental conditions. We are separated from the natural unfolding of the day to the extent that often we cannot recognize its underlying time. Layers of adulteration have distorted time to such an extent that not only new seasons of morning darkness have been created, but even ordinary events, such as identifying bedtime, have become needlessly confusing, often misleading.

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DST and Seasonal Mortality

Sunlight influences death rates. As shown in the graphs, throughout the year, death rates in the US and Japan move in the same pattern as hours of sunlight. Relative to the average, in seasons with more hours of sunlight there is a reduced tendency to die. Subsequent to the shortest sunlight of the year (the winter solstice, December 21), death rates in the US and Japan lag sunlight by 28 days. Subsequent to the longest sunlight of the year (the summer solstice, June 20), the lag is an additional 15 days (a total 43-day lag during the summer half of the year). It appears that, directly or indirectly, the lags correspond to the cumulative impact of hours of sunlight exposure and that the additional lag in the summer reflects a protective effect of sunlight. The dashed lines are positioned to illustrate the exact outcome of these lags. [Spreadsheet notes: Japan and US monthly death data, NOAA preadsheet, SRS1 Cubic Spline to convert centered monthly death rates to daily rates, max morning sunlight hours scaled to max USA and max Japan death rates. A caution: Differences in amplitude do not imply differences in annual death rates or longevity. Amplitudes reflect only relative changes during a year, within a single country, during particular periods.] It makes a difference when a DST starts. It never should begin when people are most vulnerable. In the first graph, the current DST begins when death rates are 5.9% higher than the average. In a more suitable fashion, a Memorial to Labor Day DST begins when death rates are 3.9% lower than average. Seasonal death rates reflect healthiness and resilience. You would have to struggle to find a plausible date that is significantly less healthy than the current DST’s March 10 to start a DST. In the second graph (in part an inverse of the prior graph), we see that a Memorial to Labor Day DST beginning on May 20 would start at a point 10.3% more resilient than the current DST’s March 10. Japan. It does not employ a DST. It operates on permanent standard time. For life expectancy, it frequently ranks as the top nation in the world. Its latitude (36.2°) is close to the US latitude (37.1°), thus similar sunlight. Japan’s mortality curve is instructive. Each year it goes through four distinct stages of death rate changes, approximately:

1. A substantially linear reduction of death rates in the spring, Jan 28 to Jun 14 (138 days)
2. A summer period with only slight changes in death rates, Jun 14 to Sep 17 (95 days)
3. A linear increase of increasing death rates in the fall, Sep 17 to Jan 11 (116 days)
4. A winter peak of death rates, Jan 11 to Jan 28 (17 days)

Closely matching the sunlight pattern, Japan's dominant features are its two pronounced linear wings on either side of a largely inactive summer period. Japan is also distinguished by, in middle June, reaching a narrow band of exceptionally low death rates beyond which increases in sunlight hours apparently become ineffectual. These shapes are presumably near optimum for a healthy nation. Japan's short 95-day summer period of highly stable low death rates is of special interest. This safe summer period overlaps 78% of the days in a Memorial to Labor Day DST. The extent of seasonal variation in death rates correlates with latitude, with the greatest amplitude at mid-latitude around 35 degrees, as in the United States and Japan. Seasonality of mortality can be accounted for at high correlation levels [in thirteen nations: an average R² of 0.922 for cardiovascular disease, 0.884 for all-cause mortality, 0.829 for deaths excluding cancer and CVD]. Paradoxically, northernmost countries, such as Finland and Canada, which have coldest climates, often display less seasonality than countries at less extreme latitudes, serving as a forewarning that causes remain uncertain. Regardless, we can see the seasonal death rates we must address, and do so — even when unsure about cause.

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Conclusion: New Seasons of Morning Darkness, a summary of options

Long DSTs and inappropriate time zones have artificially created seasons of early morning darkness that would not normally exist. Correcting this, the DST/time-zone fix puts an absolute cap on morning darkness. No county whatsoever experiences more than 37% of sunrises after 7:00 AM. This is fundamentally different from the current DST, which, at the median, can barely limit late sunrises to 47% of the year. There is a yawningly wide gap between the currently practiced DST & time zones and the fix. In this graph we see that with the fix, 90% of counties would be in the highly desirable position of having 30% or fewer dark mornings. You could hardly wish for better than this.

Percent, Days, and Months of Sunrises Later Than 7:00 AM. Before and After Repairing Time Zones.
Before Repairing Time Zones
Event	Median Percent	Days	Months	Ratio		Max Percent	Days	Months	Ratio
Permanent Standard Time	27%	99	3.2	1.4		46%	168	5.5	1.2
Memorial to Labor Day DST	28%	102	3.4	1.5		62%	226	7.4	1.7
1966 to 2006 DST	39%	142	4.7	2.1		79%	288	9.5	2.1
Current DST	47%	172	5.6	2.5		88%	321	10.6	2.4
Permanent DST	54%	197	6.5	2.8		88%	321	10.6	2.4
After Repairing Time Zones
Permanent Standard Time	19%	69	2.3	1.0		37%	135	4.4	1.0
Memorial to Labor Day DST	19%	69	2.3	1.0		37%	135	4.4	1.0
1966 to 2006 DST	26%	95	3.1	1.4		49%	179	5.9	1.3
Current DST	31%	113	3.7	1.6		59%	215	7.1	1.6
Permanent DST	46%	168	5.5	2.4		68%	248	8.2	1.8

At the median with the fix, the table shows that we have only 69 days of sunrises after 7:00 AM. We are physiologically well adapted for a 69-day season of morning darkness (19% of mornings dark). It is identical to conditions that existed before DST was invented. The vastly longer dark seasons now imposed on us are unnecessary. The current DST and its accompanying time zones, with its median 172 days of morning darkness, are pointless and harmful. The current dark mornings create burdens 2.5x greater than we would normally experience. Especially for schools, they have created school bus and cognitive problems that can be fixed only by a change in DST and accompanying time zones. For the rest of us, they are harming our economy, our income, our home values, and our health. The time for acting has long since passed. At Federal, State, and local levels we must effectively address:

• Repaired Time Zones
• A Memorial to Labor Day DST
• Permanent Standard Time

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Links

Abolish DST

Most countries don’t observe daylight saving time
Daylight Saving Is a Trap
Google Scholar: Medical Group Position Statements on Daylight Saving Time
Save Standard Time
Google Scholar: Topic, Adverse DST Effects For Adolescents
Kids on way to school endangered by morning darkness
School Bus Stops: Waiting in the Dark
DST Analysis
Why daylight saving time may be bad for your brain and health

Health Links

Why dark nights and bright days are good for health
How permanent standard time could save lives, explained by a sleep expert
How daylight saving time poses a host of health concerns, according to a neurologist
Daylight Saving Time and Your Health Plus, Steps to Saving Zzz's
Breast cancer risk higher in western parts of time zones

DST Interactive Maps in the News

NewsNet: Interactive Maps Put a New Perspective on Daylight Savings Time
New York Tech: Five DST Looks To Reimagine Our Clock-Changing Habits
Digital Journal: Surprise in Cheboygan, a DST that Increases Morning Sunlight
Andy Woodruff: Where to hate daylight saving time and where to love it
Bloomberg: Where Mornings Would Get Darker Under Permanent Daylight Saving Time
Washington Post: Brighter winter evenings would come at the expense of darker mornings.

Download NOAA Sunrise.xls Spreadsheet

With cartography, programming, publicly available databases, techniques mentioned in spreadsheet notes and links, the above was created. It is intended to contribute to the discussion. Do not construe any of this as medical advice. For that, consult a healthcare professional. I am not a healthcare professional.
Creative commons license CC BY-ND. Courtesy of Ike Jeanes. Developed by DSTmap.com.