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Comment by stult | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, this is what makes me mad about this debate. Permanent DST proponents talk about how they like having daylight at the end of the day after work. Well, weigh that mild preference against the very real physiological harm it causes. They want to enjoy their afternoons. I want to work a normal 9-5 job without getting heart disease because of the stress of waking up before sunrise eight months out of the year.

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That's funny, I'd also like to avoid the stress of having the sun rise at 2-3am in the summer. It's almost as if there's no right answer here and the current status quo just makes everyone unhappy and unhealthy.

The earliest that sunrise happens in the continental US is around 5AM during DST, so the earliest it would go is 4AM. That is in the extreme north of the country (excluding Alaska, which I'd say is not worth including in the conversation given its unique circumstances), on the eastern edges of time zones. So I don't know what you're talking about. If you read the article linked above, it specifically points out that there are measurable, concrete negative health effects from DST but not from standard time. So no, the sun rising early doesn't really stress you out the same way getting up before sunrise does. Not at all.

Leaving work in the dark probably causes stress as well. Not to mention that the constant DST switch in of itself causes health stress:

https://healthblog.uofmhealth.org/heart-health/why-daylight-...

I live farther north and not in the US, but since your decisions on this inevitably impact my own country's I still care about what you do, even if I don't get a say in it.

At any rate, yes, the sun rising at 4am would also stress me out. In fact, given that I'm in a position to tell you what it's like in a place where that happens for part of the year, I can inform you from personal experience that it is indeed disruptive to circadian rhythm to have the sun rise even "moderately" early.

I'm sure people in Alaska think you're a great person for telling them they don't matter, though.

Don't need to go to Alaska. Sunrise (with DST) is 5AM with EDT in downeast Maine at the summer solstice and as early or earlier in pretty much every major Canadian city.

Don't neglect twilight.

Here in Seattle, sunrise is as early as 5:10am or so in the middle of June. However, with civil twilight included, you're looking at a pretty bright sky from 4:30am to 10pm.

We're not even that far north here, but waking up out of a light sleep at 4am can certainly be bothersome.

As a kid, I always enjoyed the time of year when i would walk to school in the dark before sunrise. It had a quiet serenity, and bonus points if it was snowing.

My takeaway is that it's a matter of personal predisposition. Maybe people should move to the east or west end of their timezone based on their light-vs-dark time-of-day preferences. :)

I'm a night owl myself, but willing to meet daytime people halfway.

How about DST with a 12 hour offset?

But standard time is only 4 months right now.

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