Why this Toronto professor thinks we should stop springing our clocks forward for daylight saving time

A selection of vintage clocks are displayed at Electric Time Company, Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022, in Medfield, Mass. (Charles Krupa/The Canadian Press)

Ontarians will “lose” an hour of sleep on Sunday as clocks move forward for daylight saving time—a practice one professor says should be scrapped outright.

The semi-annual tradition, first adopted in Canada during the First World War as a means of increasing production, is aimed to provide Canadians with more daylight throughout the summer. It starts at 2 a.m. on Sunday, at which point, the time turns to 3 a.m.

Changing the clocks back an hour in November is easier, Dr. Patricia Lakin-Thomas tells CTV News Toronto, because we get a longer day and an extra hour of sleep.

It’s when the clocks push forward an hour to return to daylight time where people can really feel the toll on their bodies—the first being a lack of rest by “losing” an hour of sleep.

“When you are forcing yourself to suddenly change your time of waking and the time that you’re going to be seeing light, you’re trying to ask your clock to shift an hour, and it’s like going to a different time zone,” Lakin-Thomas explains, pointing to the feeling of jet lag travellers feel and how everything feels “out of sync.”

“It will take a day or two for your body clock to readjust to the new time zone that you’ve suddenly put yourself in and that can also cause some problems for a few days until your body clock adjusts to that.”

In the short-term, Lakin-Thomas says there are increased rates of heart attacks, strokes, and workplace injuries following the first few days of springing forward.

“There’s even one study that said judges give harsher sentences right after time change. Either they’re cranky from loss of sleep or their judgement is a bit impaired by the fact that they’re feeling a bit jet lagged," Lakin-Thomas said.

The biology professor explained pushing the time ahead an hour interferes with people’s circadian rhythms—the internal clock used to regulate bodily functions.

“Your central clock in the brain is trying to reset to the light at your new destination but your guts are getting food at the wrong time. They’re still back in your home time, possibly, if you are not keeping your food at the same time as the sun tells you to eat, and you get desynchronized, different organs are running on their own time until the central clock can finally get them all in step,” Lakin-Thomas said, adding that the light resets that internal clock and helps sync everything up.

Ontario came close to implementing daylight saving time permanently about five years ago when the Time Amendment Act was passed.

Lakin-Thomas also pointed to the Sunshine Protection Act in the U.S., passed about five years ago in the Senate making daylight time an around-the-clock period. The bill was stalled in the House of Representatives, failing to reach an agreement on whether to keep standard time or permanent daylight time.

“Ideally, we would all follow the sun, scrap our clocks, and do what they did in the Middle Ages before we had regulated clocks, do what farmers do, and get up with the sun. People in cultures that don’t have electricity don’t bother with clocks. That would be ideal. We can’t do that, but we can get rid of daylight saving,” Lakin-Thomas said.

U.S. President Donald Trump has previously suggested it is possible the country may stop changing their clocks after Sunday, saying it is “inconvenient” and “very costly” to the country to continue with the practice in a Truth Social post. However, on Thursday, the commander-in-chief appeared to backpedal, telling reporters at the Oval Office that the public was split. However, an unscientific poll recently conducted by Elon Musk, acting administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency, on X revealed roughly 58 per cent of voters would prefer to remain in permanent daylight time.

“It would be the wrong thing to do,” Lakin-Thomas said.

With files from CTVNews.ca’s Kendra Mangione