CIIRCADIAN ARCADIA:

Many of America's leading sleep scientists and researchers spent this week in Rome. They were attending the annual World Sleep Congress, discussing the importance of regular sleep and circadian rhythms. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., the Senate swiftly and unanimously passed a bill to make daylight saving time permanent.

One of the American sleep scientists in Rome, Dr. Candice Alfano, said she laughed when she found out. "A host of top sleep and circadian scientists leave the US for a few days to discuss (among other things) the dangers of daylight saving time, so the US government picks the same moment to push for permanent daylight saving time?" she said over email. "It's fitting with our government's overall relationship with science." [...]

According to scientists, a lack of morning light can lead to sleep and metabolic disorders, depression, and cardiovascular disease, among other ailments. Exposing ourselves to less light in the morning for more light in the afternoon leads to sleep deprivation; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared sleep deprivation a national endemic in 2014.

Daylight saving time causes circadian misalignment -- our bodies are not synched to the sun or to social clocks. Contrary to popular belief, it's not just the first week after the clock changes that we lose out; it's a chronic circadian misalignment.

There is no data to prove that our circadian clocks catch up with daylight saving time, even after eight months of it. Now it seems we could be an hour off our natural time for as long as it takes the government to realize that they should've switched to standard time.

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