10 reasons why daylight savings is the worst

• Daylight-saving time, which ends on November 5 at 2 a.m., has been linked to mental health issues.
• It can put people at greater risk for physical concerns as well, like cardiovascular conditions.

It's that time of year again: daylight-saving time, or DST, ends on November 5 in most of the US, parts of Canada, and a handful of island territories. If you live in an area that engages in daylight savings, prepare to gain an hour of sleep on Sunday morning.

While "springing ahead" means more daylight in the warmer months and "falling back" means days wane in the cooler months, some people dread the time change.

From sleep deprivation to seasonal affective disorder, here are 10 reasons why some people dislike DST.

Daylight savings can cause sleep deprivation

Given that light is our primary time cue, it's no surprise that we alter our circadian rhythm (the sleep/wake cycle) by changing the clock. That's why the effect that daylight-saving time can have on our internal clocks is referred to as "social jet lag."

DST may have a less drastic effect on our sleep patterns than, say, traveling across the Atlantic, but the impact isn't exactly negligible: Americans sleep about 40 minutes less the night after DST begins, according to research conducted at Michigan State University in 2009.

While the effects of jet lag are temporary as your body adjusts to the local time and light cues, during daylight-saving time, the sunrise's and sunset's timing will not change. This could result in a continued misalignment in your body's internal clock, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine wrote in a daylight-savings position statement shared by the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine in October 2020.

When you "fall back" in November, you're promised that extra hour of sleep, but research indicates that more people actually wake up sooner, have extra trouble falling asleep, and are more prone to waking up throughout the night, according to a 2013 paper in Sleep Medicine Reviews, resulting in chronic sleep loss.

It can also take a toll on mental health

A 2014 study in Germany, published in the journal Economics Letters, indicates a connection between DST and individual well-being. Researchers found "that self-reported life satisfaction deteriorates after the transition to DST." The effect is even more profound for people who are employed full-time.

A 2017 study in Epidemiology found hospital visits related to depression went up 11% during the changeover from daylight-saving time to standard time.

And according to a 2022 paper in Health Economics, following the spring changeover of DST, the suicide rate rose by 6.25% and a combined death rate from suicide and substance abuse rose by 6.59%, per data from between 1979 to 1988. It notes that there was no apparent impact during the fall changeover.

DST can put people at greater risk for cardiovascular conditions

Daylight-saving time can put people at greater risk for heart attacks (myocardial infarction) and, possibly, strokes.

A 2014 study in the journal Open Heart found that on the Monday after DST begins, 24% more people have heart attacks than on other Mondays throughout the year. On the flip side, the study noted a 21% decrease in heart attacks the Tuesday after DST ends.

Additionally, a 2016 study conducted by the American Academy of Neurology found that the rate of an ischemic stroke was 8% higher during the first two days of daylight-saving time.

It could lead to an increase in workplace injuries

While you're not likely to incur injuries at your office, DST could spell trouble for those whose jobs involve physical labor or the potential for disastrous consequences with human error.

Using data on mining accidents from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a 2009 study in the Journal of Applied Psychology illustrates an increase in the incidence and severity of workplace injuries on Mondays immediately following the switch to DST.

Additionally, the 2013 Bureau of Labor Statistics' Survey of Occupational Injuries and Illnesses reported a rise in injuries in the summer months — and a decrease in November and December after a return to standard time.

In the week after the changeover into and out of DST, there was an 18.7% increase in patient-safety incidents related to human error, a 2020 study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine reported.

Car accidents and vehicle crashes also increase

Research from a 2020 study in Current Biology found that of 732,835 fatal crashes between 1996 and 2017, there was a 6% increased risk for accidents in the week following the spring transition to DST. The study estimated that over the 22 years of data reviewed, approximately 627 fatalities could be correlated with the spring transition to daylight-saving time.

Research from 2016 also estimated that US car crashes caused by drivers affected by daylight savings likely cost 30 extra people their lives between 2002 and 2011.

You might be less productive at the office because of DST

DST might also be to blame for cyberloafing, the act of wasting time online at work. A series of studies conducted at Pennsylvania State University in 2012 found that on the Monday after the time change, employees were more likely to browse websites unrelated to their jobs.

The first study looked at existing data on the relationship between sleep loss and cyberloafing. Researchers examined Google search trends from 2004 to 2009 in 203 metro areas for "Entertainment" (i.e. YouTube, videos, music, ESPN, and Facebook). To narrow their study, they limited their search window to the Monday after DST went into effect, and the Mondays that immediately preceded and followed that day.

For the second study, researchers conducted a lab experiment in which 96 undergraduate students were asked to watch and answer questions about a video lecture the day after tracking their sleep with an Actigraph electronic sleep monitor. On average, the subjects — 43% of which were male — were 22 years old.

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) can be caused by daylight savings

When DST ends, the shift to shorter days with fewer hours of sunlight can trigger seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, which the National Institute of Mental Health describes as "a type of depression characterized by its recurrent seasonal pattern."

In a Danish study published in 2017 in Epidemiology, researchers found a direct relationship between hospital admissions for depression and DST. Not only were admissions highest in the winter, but they also peaked right after the time change.

Reverse SAD, too

It's rare, but some people — about 1% of the US population, according to Penn Medicine — get the summer blues instead of the winter doldrums.

Although there isn't a consensus on the exact cause of reverse SAD, the phenomenon has been attributed to excessive exposure to sunlight, high temperatures, and even partying, since we're enticed to stay up later when the days get longer.

Although DST was first introduced to save energy, the time change has the opposite effect

DST may have been officially invented by George Vernon Hudson, a New Zealand scientist, and British builder William Willett — the men came up with the concept independently, 10 years apart — but Benjamin Franklin was one of the first proponents of implementing a time change to save energy.

In a paper he submitted to a French journal, the Founding Father, an acclaimed inventor, proposed that if there were more hours of daylight, people wouldn't waste as many candles lighting their homes at night — a pretty radical idea in a pre-electricity world. More than a century later, the US government established a temporary daylight-saving time during the World Wars to conserve electricity and fuel.

However, DST, in its current iteration, causes us to consume energy rather than conserve it. This is indicated by a 2008 National Bureau of Economic Research study that focused on energy use in Indiana, which did not uniformly observe DST until 2006. The study found that DST increased residential electricity demand by an estimated 1%.

Apparently, DST increases the demand for heating and, even more so, cooling.

In the spring and summer, extra daylight means you're more tempted to spend money after work

DST is in the best interest of the retail lobby. Your wallet, on the other hand? Not so much.

According to a 2016 survey by JPMorgan Chase & Co. Institute, the extra hour of daylight tended to reduce negative emotions such as frustration and anger, thus encouraging people to spend more money.

Ultimately, experts across the board believe the permanent solution to daylight-saving time would alleviate concerns related to mental and physical health, workplace injuries, vehicle fatalities, job productivity, energy conservation, budgeting, and more.

The question remains: Will something be done about it?