It’s that time of the year again where we’re supposed to gather with family and close friends, talk about anything but politics, and eat monstrous amounts of good food throughout the next few days as we celebrate Thanksgiving. I used to joke with my friends that we would all be subjected to tryptophan poisoning, but just as the story about Ben Franklin wanting the national bird to be a turkey is just a myth, we can’t blame our post-feast stupor on just tryptophan either.

In March 2022, the United States Senate approved the Sunshine Protection Act, which would make Daylight Savings Time (DST) permanent starting in November of 2023. There was still some healthy debate over whether Americans should accept Standard Time versus DST as their new permanent or keep the current system of “spring forward, fall back.” Regardless of whether we will have DST forever, there is broad consensus that the clock switch every March and November is disruptive to our sleep patterns and our circadian rhythms.

Whether to save energy, increase night-time Trick-or-Treat hours on Halloween, get those few extra minutes of sun to squeeze in the last innings of a Little League or high school baseball game, or just to normalize our sleep patterns, even a seemingly obscure issue like switching between standard time and DST is tied to our health and well-being in our society. And this is why we have to consider how sleep and the circadian rhythm can affect our physiology.