Why a sleep doctor says we should never change our clocks again

0:00This year, the Globe and Mail is hosting Intersect 26, our signature business and policy event across four cities, Toronto, Calgary, Halifax, and Vancouver. Here Globe journalists in conversation with government, industry leaders, and policymakers on Canada's action plan for growth and renewal. Intersect 26 is your access point for key business insights, networking, and future planning. Register today at tgam.ca-intresssect26-desible. Hey, it's Cheryl. It's Sunday, and right now you're probably a little sleepier than usual. That's because today, for most of Canada, our clocks sprung forward for daylight saving time, or DST, meaning we lost an hour of sleep. But for the province of British Columbia, this will be the last time they changed their clocks. Premier David E.B. said that BC will now permanently switch to DST year-round.

1:00And that news made me think of an episode we did back in the fall, where we spoke to a psychology professor and sleep expert. He makes the argument that all this clock changing we do with the seasons is actually terrible for us. But also, BC's solution might not be the way out. So here's our episode on what time changes due to our bodies. Hope you enjoy, and also hoping you find a way to catch up on those these. This Sunday, most of Canada will gain an hour back, as we switch from daylight saving time to standard time. And while we've gotten used to changing the clocks back and forth, especially with our smart devices, mostly doing it for us now, our bodies have not. Changing our time by an hour can have a huge impact on our health. Today, psychology professor Joseph DeConink is here. He studies sleep at the University of Ottawa, and his recent research looks at how daylight saving time affects our circadian rhythms,

2:02what we can do to minimize negative consequences, and why he thinks Canada should consider staying on standard time year-round. I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is the decibel from the Globe and Mail. Professor Joseph DeConink, thanks so much for being on the show today. Oh, it's my pleasure. So, most of Canada has been observing daylight saving time for over a century now, but before we get into what we've learned about that time change in recent years, I want to talk about what we've learned more generally about sleep and how important it is to our well-being. So, how much does sleep or a lack of it affect us? Well, the sleep is the common denominator for psychological and physical adaptation. In other words, if you don't get the proper amount of sleep or the good sleep, nothing works in terms of physical, also in terms of functioning psychologically, mentally, and we know that sleep deprivation is a suicidality factor because you lose your judgment.

3:09You see, the important thing is that our brain is really, really complex. It's been really developed. The front or part of our brain is crucial, consciousness, creativity, all of this, the perception of reality, the perception of emotions, and things like that. This part of the brain is extremely calorie-using. We have a lot of cells that need to recover because they've been used all day. So, when you lose sleep or when you get the end of the day, your judgment is not good at all. And if it's in the long run that you don't sleep well, then you have a host of diseases that you can develop because the immune system is rejuvenated during sleep. Almost every month now, we discover that some of our major illnesses are related somewhat to sleep. The last one was Alzheimer's disease. So, it's essential. We know that when we don't sleep well, it doesn't work

4:10well. So, the big issue is that modern society is creating so many things now that interfere with sleep. Do you have light all the time? We have night work. We have iPhones now that really take away typically half an hour of sleep, and so on. So, there's a host of issues that we have now learned where we're learning to deal with them. And part of that, of course, is daylight saving time. That definitely impacts how we sleep. And on Sunday, most of Canada will be falling back, which means we'll be back to standard time, which means at least some of us believe this is an extra hour of sleep since, for example, ADM becomes 7am. So, people are generally excited about this time change, but is this actually something to be celebrated? Oh, I think so. I think it's like going back to normal. Yeah, tell me more about that. Well, it's just that humans have evolved as day people, as light people. I mean, we function it light. And the idea is that we evolved in

5:12the equator with 12 hours of light, 12 hours of darkness. But humans have gone up to the north and adapted to that. So, now we're up to fairly high above the equator, especially in Canada, which is a kind of issues, which means now that we are only eight hours of light during the winter, during December and so the months of winter months. But we do have in the summer, the counterpart is 16 hours of light. So, that's quite an elastic for our biological clock that is supposed to re-adapt, because it requires light. And so, the idea is that because we function here, now with the amount of light that we get, the biological clock uses the light, the first light in the morning. And the midday light, our brain records this and decides, okay, we're going to distribute our activity, digestion, everything that we do, respecting this situation. So, what essentially

6:18what we're doing with so-called daylight saving time is that we're playing with that biological clock. We're playing with that. Yeah, so let me let me talk to you about that, because what you said here is very fascinating, because you're saying that there is something to be celebrated when it comes to the changes happening on Sunday, because we're going back to standard time, and that aligns us with the solar time, which is our biological clocks. But then there's, of course, the change that happens in spring, which definitely feels harder because it's generally viewed as losing an hour of sleep, and we're going into what is called daylight saving time. Can you explain why it feels worse, and what does it do to us? Oh, the interesting thing here is that, for example, we talk about daylight saving time. So, let's start with the real culprit here for the general public. Daylight saving time would mean that we're saving daylight time. We're not saving daylight, and we don't get worse daylight saving time. We're moving it towards the evening. That's all. So, the sun rises later in the morning. Yeah, okay. The spring change has two major issues.

7:21The first one is that we lose an hour of sleep, and since most people now, we know about 50% of Canadians have issues with sleep, or our sleep deprivation somewhat. So, when we move the clock, then the second thing is that we desynchronize our biological clock with the light, okay? So, we tend to go to bed later. So, throughout the summer, we tend to sleep less significantly, but after an hour. So, losing an hour of sleep is a significant effect. It's not like losing four, five hours, but it's still there. It's still well documented. So, it is just an hour, and it only really affects us for a week, per se, sometimes, you know, to adjust to this time change. Is it really a big deal, then? Humans, as I said, are really well organized to adapt to different situations. You know, we have people living in the north now, you know, the First Nations, the First Nations. They live with only a few hours of light during the winter,

8:25and they adapt. They adapt, you know, but it takes a long time to adapt. So, here what we're doing is we're doing a yo-yo every six, six months. Just one hour is enough to affect your mood, then it has an impact somewhat on, for example, you appetite, you tend to eat more, because the hormones that regulate the food intake or the need to food or you become hungry, it's all regulated in sleep, in deep sleep. So, if you chip away some of it, it will have an effect, it will have more of an effect on vulnerable people. You know, we talk a lot, a lot, it's very well documented that there are more heart attacks following, you know, on the Monday, Tuesday, after the change. And car accidents as well, I hear about too, right? Yes, yes, but it's all happens to people who are at the edge already, okay? Elderly people, like me, kids are really more affected as well. So, outside of the abrupt hour change,

9:30it's that we're getting less sleep, that whole time we're on daylight saving time, because we're just staying up later, but generally getting up at the same time. And, you know, and kids go to don't want to go to sleep, because it's still light, okay? I know this from actual life. Yeah, my daughter will tell me it's light outside, I don't need to go to bed. Yeah, that's right. So, fortunately for the kids, you know, have school, you know, at least for the two months or two months of the summer, there's a problem that when comes September, because then we have to have to be adapt and they can't get that morning sleep. I can say from experience that the spring time change feels worse as I get older, both physically and mentally. Is there any truth to this? Is the switch harder as we age? Oh, yes, our biological clock is aging, as we get older. Just to give you a good example is where it's asleep, my area of expertise. You know, what really puts up to sleep is the lack of light, but it's also

10:34body temperature. And it goes down, if you're well synchronized, you know, around at nine o'clock, it's the temperature going down that puts you to sleep with the lack of light. So, when you get to sleep, it goes down until four or five o'clock in the morning. So, you really get it to deep sleep. And then after that, it starts to rise. Well, what happens when you get older is that curve of temperature flattens. And that's why elderly people wake up all the time because their temperature doesn't go up enough and doesn't go down enough. It's normal. Yeah, another sign of aging, I guess. Yes. Time changes about on me because I'm getting older. And that's that's just part of life. Joseph, I want to ask you a bit more about light because you've written that light in the morning up until noon is especially important for us. Can you explain why that is? Yes, because the biological clock works with a, there's a center in the brain that is really responding to light.

11:37And that synchronizes the whole system of a clock. And it goes all over the body. Even in all the cells we have this clock system, it's very precise. People, you know, can, I realize myself now that you can wake up just at this particular minute, you know, and some people are able to do that. It's been demonstrated for that. Yeah. So, our brain is really well equipped. You know, it's much better than an iPhone. And it's, it can just perceive time and all kinds. So, so this comes through the eyes, the light, and it goes through the retina. And then there are receptors there that connect directly. Okay, so that's how it happens. And this is particularly important in the morning because our biological clock is more than 24 hours. So every day it has to readjust by one or two or three minutes. Otherwise, you will tend to go to sleep later and later. So a lot of us,

12:37you know, because of these issues of that, we tend to have a phase daily. We tend to go to bed later and later and later later. Okay, so we need to have the light early in the morning. Depression is often an issue also of that synchronization. And so the best non-medicated way to contribute to a treatment of depression is morning light. It's not evening. It's morning light. Even though we say, oh, we're very happy to have more light in the afternoon. But for depression, it's morning light that starts the car. So that is why it's so crucial not to move this morning light towards the evening. So that's the argument that basically, you know, this time change we're doing right now to standard time. That's what we need that because we need that morning light. Whereas right now in the morning, it's so dark. But in fact, going back to standard time is helping us to kind of

13:38realign and re-center. Yeah, I was just looking again now to the times that, like for example, in Toronto, you know, right now it's about the sun rises about a quarter to eight. So if we were to go on without going back one hour by the end of December, we would be at a quarter to nine with sun would rise. Can you imagine? That's really nice. So that's why we can't have daylight saving all year round. But next Monday, you will see that because we're going back, the sun will rise at seven. So all these people are now at seven o'clock on the road and they're going to be very happy because they will have that. On the other end, when they go back from work in the car, it's going to be darker. It's so sad. Okay. Yes. But you have to say, you have to decide where it is. So a lot of people will say to me, you know, I don't care because I wake up at nine in the morning,

14:42yes, because you don't have to work or you know, you're working on the kids. Yeah. So science is saying, if you go to daylight saving time, you're going to be sorry. We'll be right back. So Joseph, you've laid out how daylight saving time can negatively impact our well-being. The time change was widely introduced in Canada in the early 1900s to get people working longer and to save energy during the first world war. But of course, the war is over. And now all this research shows it's hurting our health. So why are we still doing it? Well, there is quite a bit of lobby from the business that is in the trial. I have nothing against these business that profit from the light in the Gulf in the US particularly. You know, they want to go all year round like in Florida. So they want to have more light in the evening.

15:43This time, the convenience store, you know, Ontario of lobby. But there's another issue that I want to mention is that standard time is normally aligned, you know, the time zones are normally aligned with the solar time. But that's what happened in Canada as much. In Canada, we have adjusted, because we're so widely spread, we've adjusted it to economy. Yeah. So the big cities that Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa were all well in the time zone. But for example, we've put Quebec and Ontario in the same time zone. So at the both ends, they're in the wrong thing. So they have these issues where, for example, in Thunder Bay, if we were to go to daylight saving, the light would come up only at 9, 30, 10 o'clock. So it sounds like with even time zones and also with daylight saving time and switching the clocks back and forth, that the economy is capitalism that is actually kind of

16:47pushing us. It's not about our well-being here. It's an economic part of it that is actually pushing us to do these changes. Yes. And you know, for example, Ontario and Quebec, I always say, where we want to go to daylight saving. Well, you try it. But they say, only if New York and Michigan and Illinois, because of the... Like a change? Yeah. Yeah. You could people say, you know, it has to be close at five o'clock. So we have to have the same time because, you know, people do the trading and so on. So we can't, we have to manage. But that's not the case because a lot of people, a lot of other countries and so follow that. And they, they just adapt apparently the business. So it's a difficult issue for politicians and we're trying to provide them with more information. So some Canadian politicians do want to do something about this time change. But instead of moving to standard time, they want to make daylight savings time, the permanent time. So what would that do if we went on to daylight saving time permanently? People will regret it. It's very clear now

17:48that we've been in touch with politicians now. So what they're trying to do now, federally, is to consult and then arrive at consensus. The issue again would be that, ideally, you'd want to, if you want to go to daylight saving, you'd have to completely readjust the time zones because I've mentioned it exacerbates certain areas. Sun won't start until way later in the morning. Yes. Yes. But my perception, after all these years of, you know, interviewed and followed, my perception is that there's simply not knowledge, not the scientific knowledge has not reached the politicians. Every time that these laws have been voted, like in the Senate and the U.S. and I'll tell you, there was not a single scientist that was consulted. It was just done on the basis of, if you look at the Ontario discussion that took, if you can go back and hear all the discussion that was it went, it just be, oh, I like to go

18:49to the grocery store when I pick up my kids in the afternoon. So I'd like to have daylight saving. But they don't talk about the morning issue. But so they all, everybody has their own feeling, oh, I love light. So I'd like to have more light because they think they'll have more light in the winter. They won't. So I think in Canada now, the sciences are going to be consulted. Yeah. I'm assuming if they consulted you and other scientists that they wouldn't say go to daylight saving time, they would say go to standard time. Oh, yeah. You'll be happier. Okay. So of course, we still have these time changes in our lives right now. So let's talk about what we can do to prepare for these changes in the meantime. So let's start with the one coming up on Sunday. How do we save ourselves from a groggy week? The main advice, well, it's to prepare in each case. In the case of the fall, just use that extra hour. Don't spoil it. Use that extra hour. Generally speaking, always go to bed with darkness. Don't worry. Don't read. Don't have the

19:51screens and just do do that. And you keep doing that when the time chains come. So here, we have the opportunity. If we are somewhat always a little bit sleep deprived, to read just our clock three, you know, without making any effort. So if you go to sleep at midnight, typically, and then you have to wake up at 6.30 or 7. What you do is you don't say, oh, I am an extra hour now. I'm changing my clock so I can go to bed at this at one o'clock in your current biological clock system. But no, the idea is you keep you going to bed at the same time. So then you will wake up in the morning. You'll have an extra light. So you don't have to use your alarm. Yeah, you have another, you're a snooze. You know, you're going to be able to snooge. And then you keep that. Okay. Keep the bedtime you have. Don't change it. Yeah. But in the spring, the best thing to do is to start going to bed earlier, a week earlier.

20:58So it's not you don't have the one hour shock. Exercise is very good. Napping is terrific for some people, people like I nap. And as you get older, you have to compensate sometimes for lack of sleep, good naps. Not more than 20 minutes, 30 minutes is very good, very, very good for the brain, for the heart. A lot of studies, we've done a lot of studies on that ourselves in our lab. The night sleep is better than the nap. But the nap in itself, a cup of coffee will help you will give you vigilance for about half an hour. Okay. And that of 10 to 20 minutes, four hours more of vigilance and functioning. So overall, Joseph, you've convinced me to stick to a bedtime, no matter what the clock says. But for those of us who have a hard time getting to sleep, especially at a set time, how can we help ourselves get ready for bed aside from turning off the lights or putting an eye mask on? So make sure that you don't exercise late

22:03at night. Okay. If you exercise, your body temperature goes up and then prevents you to go to sleep. So, so that's one trick so that you can lower your temperature. More drop in temperature there is the better sleep you will have. So there's a host of other things that you can do. You don't eat in the evening because again, all of this raises your temperature, you digest you and so on. Should we also turn down the temps in our rooms to help us kind of, you know, trigger sleep. The science suggests that you bring it down somewhere. Okay. So down to 20. Some people say 19 Celsius 20. But for some people, it doesn't work that much. The people that have different conditions. But the core issue is in is temperature and light. Joseph, this has been a really fascinating

23:03conversation. Thanks so much for coming on the show. That was Professor Joseph DeKoning. He's an emeritus professor of psychology at the University of Ottawa where he researches sleep and dreams. That's it for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland. Our producers are Madeline White, Michal Stein and Ali Graham. David Crosby edits the show. Adrian Chung is our senior producer and Angela Pachenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening and I'll talk to you soon. This year, the Globe and Mail is hosting Intersect 26, our signature business and policy event across four cities, Toronto, Calgary, Halifax and Vancouver. Here, Globe journalists in conversation with government industry leaders and policymakers on Canada's action plan for growth and renewal. Intersect 26 is your access point for key business insights, networking and future planning.

24:05Register today at tgam.ca-intersect26-desible.