Daylight savings time

The Senate wants to make daylight saving time permanent—but that could leave Americans with less sleep and worse health

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On Tuesday, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to make daylight saving time permanent from 2023—getting rid of the biannual ritual of Americans changing their clocks back or forth by an hour.

The House still needs to pass the so-called Sunshine Protection Act, but if it succeeds, the time Americans live on during the summer—four hours behind Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)—would now be the standard time across the U.S. year-round. That means later sunrises and sunsets.

Yet sleep scientists argue the choice of daylight saving time over standard time—in other words, choosing the "spring forward" rather than "fall back" time—would leave Americans permanently out of sync with their natural schedule and potentially lead to a range of health issues.

Why do we have daylight saving time?

First applied consistently across the U.S. in 1966, daylight saving is an idea whose time may have passed.