Sleep and Daylight Saving Time 6:08
(CNN Spanish) --
Summer time in Mexico could soon come to an end.
The measure that has been in force in the country since 1996 and involves advancing the clock one hour every early April has been evaluated by the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who said that there is a possibility that it will not be implemented anymore.
The president of Mexico had already stated for a few months that his government intended to put an end to the time change questioning the effectiveness of the summer.
"Savings were talked about, but it was not shown that electric power was really saved," he said last March and announced that he would commission a study on the matter from the Ministry of Energy.
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This Wednesday he said that he already has the results of that study and that he will announce them soon, but he announced that there is "a great possibility" of ending this practice.
For eight months of the year, Mexico and dozens of other countries follow daylight saving time, and for the remaining four months they return to standard (winter) time.
But, what are the reasons given by the Government?
Also, what is said in other countries where the time change is also being debated?
And which ones have time change, some
did they ever have it or have they never implemented it?
Why does summer time exist?
1:07
The health impact and false energy savings
“The savings are minimal and the damage to health is considerable”, these have been the arguments that López Obrador has given again during the morning conference this Wednesday.
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Historically, the raison d'être of summer time has been to take advantage of more sunlight to use less electricity in homes or work buildings.
However, it is difficult to conclude whether this practice really saves energy or not, since the most recent data available in the country is from 2018. According to the Electricity Savings Trust (FIDE), in that year, the savings in the electricity consumption was 945.29 GWh, which could "supply the consumption of 592,240 dwelling houses for a whole year, or the equivalent of the energy consumption of 8.3 million fluorescent lamps lit 24 hours a day during one year," according to the body in charge of monitoring this measure since its implementation.
Another of the arguments that the Government has given to say goodbye to this schedule has to do with health.
Experts say that adjusting our clocks in the spring alters the circadian system, which controls sleep.
Boreal daylight saving time has ended.
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That is, during daylight saving time, the clock advances one hour, so sunrise and sunset occur one hour later than before.
This also advances the biological clock by one hour.
Therefore, one might tend to go to bed later and have a harder time getting up in the morning.
But skimping on sleep goes way beyond dark circles.
Lack of sleep is linked to type II diabetes, heart attacks, and depression.
On the other hand, there are those who assure that this practice does not suppose great damage to health, except for those people who suffer from sleep disorders.
"If someone has a disease of this type, it is difficult for them to start sleeping and get up, and this is aggravated during the time change, to which they never adapt, says Ulises Jiménez Correa, director of the Sleep Disorders Clinic of the Faculty of Medicine at UNAM.
According to Jiménez, for the population in general, it does not imply a major problem.
"This measure can make you a little tired for the first few days, but after a week you will have adapted," he says.
The controversy in other countries
Mexico is not the only country in the world where it is debated whether or not the time change should exist.
In the European Union (EU) it is a controversy that comes twice a year with each clock adjustment because the member countries cannot agree on its implementation, despite the fact that in 2018 the European Parliament voted in favor of ending this practice.
The survey promoted by Brussels then also showed that among the European population there is no unanimous response to the issue: although 84% of the participants (4.6 million) voted in favor of putting an end to it, there is at least 20% in favor of continuing with this practice.
The United States Senate passes a bill to make daylight saving time permanent
In the United States, the Senate approved last March by unanimous consensus the Sunlight Protection Act, which would make daylight saving time permanent in that country.
Although it would still have to pass the House of Representatives and be signed by President Joe Biden to become law, the bill has its critics.
"The Sunlight Protection Act? You could also call it the Darkness Protection Act," Dr. David Neubauer, a sleep medicine expert at Johns Hopkins University, told CNN.
Neubauer is not alone in this sentiment.
The American Academy of Sleep Medicine issued a statement following the passage of this law in the Senate, warning that "making DST permanent ignores potential health risks that can be avoided by establishing a permanent standard time" .
The following chart shows the countries that currently have DST, have ever had it, or have never used it:
With reporting from CNN's Paul LeBlanc and Ali Zaslav
© Summer time in Mexico could come to an end: what is the reason?
Change of schedulesSummer Time
