68 | HealthLinksSC.com In 1784, an elderly Benjamin Franklin unexpectedly awakened early one morning in the otherwise sleeping city of Paris. If nothing more than to tease his host city, he penned an essay suggesting an enormous financial savings if the locals could be enticed to live more of their days earlier – between sunrise and sunset – thus drastically reducing nightlife and the need for costly candles. He echoed those sentiments in his familiar proverb, “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” Regardless, no one took his proposal seriously until the early 1900s when first Germany, then the United Kingdom and finally, in 1918, the United States, instituted daylight saving time. However, although originally promoted as a way to conserve electricity and resources as well as to benefit agriculture, any energy savings have been negligible, and farmers have always opposed the practice. Furthermore, health and safety issues may be exacerbated by switching time schedules twice yearly. Should daylight saving time be permanently canceled, or should it become the permanent choice? Opinions are divided. To institutionalize it, bipartisan leaders in Washington have introduced the Sunshine Protection Act, which has twice passed the Senate but gone no further. South Carolina is one of 19 states that have either enacted legislation or passed resolutions in favor of keeping daylight saving time permanently. Ahmad Boota, M.D., a sleep medicine physician at Bon Secours St. Francis Health System in Greenville, acknowledged that extra daylight hours allow for more outdoor time, exercise activities, social and mental health opportunities and exposure to real sunlight to boost vitamin D levels. However, he also pointed out, “Our internal clock, known as the human circadian system, operates on chemical rhythms that tell your body when to sleep and when to wake. These rhythms develop out of consistent schedules and can be difficult to change, which makes even the smallest deviation noticeable and sometimes hard to adjust to.” Changing our clocks back and forth can cause big problems to sleep cycles as well as overall health. “ “
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjcyNTM1