Daylight saving time 2024: Don’t forget to turn back the clocks on this day

Twice a year, people across the country change their clocks. First, they “jump forward” to enjoy an extra hour of daylight during the summer months before “falling back” to standard time in the winter.

In just over a week, the clocks will “reset” when Americans change clocks from 2 a.m. to 1 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 3 – marking the end of Daylight Saving Time and the beginning of Standard Time.

Daylight saving time begins again on Sunday, March 9, 2025.

According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), standard time only accounts for about 35% of the year, as daylight saving time lasts 65% of the year with 238 days.

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Even though changing the clocks isn’t particularly popular, according to NIST, it “has the effect of creating more sunny hours in the evenings in the months when the weather is warmest.”

In America, setting the clock forward and back has been practiced for over a century, with the “Fast Time” time change being first introduced in the USA in 1918.

It ended less than a year later, although cities such as Boston, New York and Pittsburgh continued to use it.

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President Franklin D. Roosevelt reintroduced the idea in 1942 under the term “War Time,” which lasted until 1945, although there were no uniform rules for changing clocks until the Uniform Time Act of 1966.

Time-changing controversy

Despite the tradition, the practice is not particularly popular.

A 2023 YouGov survey of 1,000 Americans found that 62% of participants no longer want to change their clocks twice a year.

Half of participants said they would prefer daylight saving time year-round, while 31% preferred standard time.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, many states want to stop the time change.

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Last year, three bills were proposed to establish permanent standard time in Massachusetts, but none passed.

In 2023 alone, 75 bills were filed in 29 states to eliminate the time change, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

None of these bills became law.

The Bay Staters aren’t exactly thrilled about the time change either.

Earlier this year, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., along with U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, promoted theirs Sunshine Protection Actwhich would make daylight saving time permanent nationwide.

The bill was approved by the upper house last year but is now stuck in committee, the Washington Post reported.

There is widespread support for eliminating the annual time change: nearly two-thirds of respondents (63%) to a 2021 Economist/YouGov poll said they support eliminating daylight saving time.

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But some sleep experts say Americans who are chronically sleep-deprived could use some extra sleep.

“There’s a disconnect when we have to get up early to go to work or school, but it’s still dark outside and we want to sleep,” said Beth Malow, professor of neurology and pediatrics and head of sleep at Vanderbilt University, then told The Hill about the Senate vote in 2022.

This dawn’s early light “actually aligns us so that our internal clocks are in tune with what’s going on in our environment,” Malow told the Hill.

Dr. Karin Johnson, a sleep specialist at Baystate Medical Center in Springfield, found that standard time is the better option for a year-round time change.

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She said her research on sleep cycles, conducted with colleagues, shows that sustained standard time can improve brain functionality, mood and concentration, and help reduce car accidents and the risk of developing long-term health problems.

“Time zones are designed so that the sun is as close to the sky as possible at midday,” Johnson said in 2022. “Daylight saving time shifts the clock by an hour, so we have later sunrises and sunsets.

“But unfortunately our body is not based on the time, but rather on the time of the sun.”