It’s time change day, hands back 60 minutes. Everything goes back to the way it was before March, six months ago. There has been much discussion in Europe in recent months about whether to extend daylight saving time into the winter months as well, but then nothing more has been heard about it even though “scientists argue that a single winter schedule would benefit health and sleep,” writes the Paìs.
Nothing was done, however, so it’s back to the status quo ante, with the result that it will dawn earlier and the arrival at work will be sunnier, but it will also get dark earlier and the day will end much earlier than usual.
Yet according to a survey conducted by the European Commission itself in 2018, 84 percent of the 4.6 million citizens who participated were in favor of eliminating the time change in Europe, and more and more scientists support the adoption of a single measure of time. And according to April barometer data from the Center for Sociological Research (Csi), 65 percent of Spaniards “prefer to end the seasonal time change and, of these, 70.9 percent choose to set daylight saving time.”
That is, in general, for the experts, if we were to eliminate the seasonal change and stay with one of the two systems, the most balanced solution for the entire Spanish population “would be to keep the one we are entering now” this weekend, yet despite this, “summer time is more appreciated by the population,” is the extreme summary.
“From the point of view of chronobiology, winter time is more beneficial because it is more consistent with the cycles of light and darkness,” explains Maria Ángeles Rol de Lama, professor of Physiology at the University of Murcia and director of the Chronobiology Laboratory while some studies indicate that, “as light and leisure time increase, harmful behaviors such as alcohol or tobacco consumption also increase” so “we get more light during school and work hours, which promotes concentration, and there is more darkness at night, which helps us fall asleep.”
Therefore, rest, quiet, and concentration would be the options for a return to normalcy, “important for our health.” However, this is controversial, because at the same time there is a part of the population that prefers summer time because they associate it precisely with “rest, tranquility, vacations, good weather,” thus also with good mood, with being positive.
The Paìs article puts it very much on the psychological-humoral-attitudinal aspect while it makes no mention of economic factors. However, Conflavoro Pmi, the National Confederation of Small and Medium Enterprises, recently estimated a savings of 2.7 billion euros by 2023 if daylight saving time is maintained, corresponding to a reduction of about 7.3 percent on the cost of utility bills. That at this juncture could be an appropriate measure against high energy prices.
