Weighing the pros and cons of ditching the seasonal time change

Time zones across Canada are getting complicated. While some provinces are choosing to ditch the seasonal clock change, others are still debating whether it's time to fall back or spring forward permanently. And here in this province, the debate is heating up. So what actually makes the most sense? Let's ask someone who has a pretty good idea. Dr. Michael Antle is a psychology and neuroscience professor at the University of Calgary and a leading circadian rhythm researcher, and he joins us now. Where it was really dark this morning at Alberta, you now live in a province that is only two hours behind us here on PEI because Alberta did not fall back this year. It's sticking to daylight saving time. Fan of that move? It's taken some getting used to. I've got family in the Maritimes myself, and now it's a little bit easier coordinating phone calls, but that's the only perk I'm seeing. Right. So you have made the case for permanent standard time. Why do you believe that is really the better option? So my area of research is studying circadian rhythms. We have a clock in our brain. It follows daylight. It organizes what time you want to fall asleep, what time you wake up, and everything else that goes on in your body. And the more natural choice that aligns with what your body wants to do is when your schedule matches daylight. Your circadian clock really does not like waking up before dawn, especially on these late winter mornings. As the sun's rise gets much later, it's really hard. And that's what Daylight Saving Time asks everybody to do. Let's wake up an hour early from now on. Your body might not agree. Yeah, so I mentioned you had a very dark start to your morning. Tell us more about that. A new record there? Yeah, so our latest sunrise here in Calgary used to be between Christmas and New Year's. It was about 8:40 in the morning, but now that we're on daylight time year-round, that means that just today, we actually have the latest sunrise. It was 8:42 here in Calgary today, and it's going to keep getting later. We're going to break that record tomorrow and the next day, all the way right up until between Christmas and New Year's when sunrise here in Calgary is going to be 9.40. And what does that do to you when sunrise is so late? Well, it makes you kind of groggy in the morning. It's hard to get up and get around. I notice I'm a little worried when I'm driving because my reaction times don't feel like they're where they should be commuting on the roads here. It's really dark. So I start my day by dropping my kid off at the bus and it is incredibly dark. It's going to be more than an hour before sunrise as we move through the rest of this month. So, you know, worried about kid safety, worried about tired drivers, lack of visibility in the morning, and then productivity on the job, that when you get into work, you're probably going to spend more time with the coffee machine than you will on the actual tasks that you need to do. Are there any drawbacks to making a change, say, if this island decided to move to permanent standard time? Are there any drawbacks to that? Well, if you went to permanent standard time, then in the summers, your sunsets would be a little bit earlier. They'd be an hour earlier than you enjoyed for the previous summers up until now. Um, and... And sometimes people think that's a drawback because they like late summer evenings. It actually can be a bit of a benefit. There's value in darkness that you can actually go to sleep easier. The later your sun sets, the later you go to bed. But if you still have to get up and go to work based on a clock. You don't get as much sleep. So the earlier the sun sets, the more sleep you get. So here's a question for you. Do you think that PEI could make the move to permanent standard time, or maybe they decide to do permanent daylight saving time, even if the other Atlantic provinces don't follow suit? That would be weird. You're all very tightly knit and close together there, so it would probably feel quite weird. I travel back to the Maritimes every summer, and having one of the provinces being off would be strange. I know Maritimes, of course, are a half hour off from Newfoundland, and that still feels a little weird, but at least they're further away. Yeah, I think that's one of the big sort of questions right now is if this province decides to make a move, they would like the other provinces to do the same. And Islanders are being invited to participate in a survey to help PEI decide which way to go. So what is your best advice to Islanders listening to this right now as they weigh these options? Well, the more natural choice from health and been looked at across the whole world is the standard time. Places that have tried daylight time year-round usually have abandoned it after a couple years of trying it. So Russia did this in 2011 for three years, and now they're on permanent standard time year-round. After realizing what those dark winter mornings are like, the compromise choice is continue doing what you're doing now. Spring forward, fall back. It gives you the benefits of a nice late summer evening without the. The harm of the late winter mornings and then the daylight time year round. It seems to be what everybody's choosing, but people seem to have a lot of buyer's remorse and regret that choice. I'm just wondering why provinces keep doing this, then moving the daylight standard or daylight saving time when really the signs of the data seems to point to staying on standard if you're going to switch to just one. Well, for sure. I'm confused by it, too. I think people think that it's mostly just an arbitrary choice, that there aren't consequences. You just have to pick one, but it's the same choice either way. But unfortunately, the science suggests that one of the two actually would be better for your health. And then history also tells us that every time people have gone to daylight time year-round, they've regretted it and have moved back to either changing the clocks twice a year or gone to standard time. So that's why we're trying to advocate this based on history and experience. People have tried this and didn't like it. So if you were in charge and you had the final call here on PEI, would you stick to the status quo, continuing to flip the clocks, or would you stick to one? The natural standard of one would be better. We know there's acute harm that comes when you change the clock particularly in the spring. It sort of causes an abrupt misalignment of your circadian clock with the day and that leads to harm. It's not as bad as a chronic misalignment that you get going to daylight time year-round. So yeah, the better choice is the natural standard time. Well, I appreciate your advice. Good luck with those dark mornings. Thank you. Take good care.