Western Standard - Psychologist says Alberta should stay on MST instead of DST

00:00:00.000 hello so with alberta coming closer and closer to finalizing having mountain daylight time

00:00:06.240 year-round we have a very timely guest today that is dr michael antel he is a psychology

00:00:12.560 professor at the university of calgary whose research specializes in circadian rhythm of

00:00:18.320 mammals so thank you very much for joining us today really appreciate it thank you for having

00:00:24.880 me thank you okay so i just want to get straight into it so um why don't you just tell the audience

00:00:31.920 members a little bit about what circadian rhythm is and how it's related to sunlight

00:00:37.280 so um our circadian rhythms these are daily processes in our body uh all of our physiology

00:00:43.440 and our behavior uh and it's controlled by a clock in our brain uh it helps us know when to wake up

00:00:48.240 and know when to go to bed and know when to be hungry and know when all the hormones to start

00:00:51.760 secreting uh and it's the relevance to daylight is um the day night cycle the sun is what sets

00:00:59.840 our circadian clock so we know our body can anticipate sunrise and anticipate sunset and

00:01:05.440 so that clock that's sticking away in our head tracks daylight and and so that's why it's

00:01:10.160 important for this particular question on choosing which clock to use is you want to align our our

00:01:16.000 school and our work schedule our social schedules with what our body wants to do the body's trying

00:01:20.160 to follow daylight and it'd be really good to try to maximize how synchronized those two things are

00:01:26.320 the bigger the mismatch the worse it is for our health okay so with the province wanting to do

00:01:32.560 mountain daylight time what's your thoughts on this and yeah so for many reasons for alberta

00:01:40.080 in particular it'd be better to stick with the more natural standard time all across the world

00:01:46.160 sleep scientists like me have been arguing that the standard time is the the healthier choice

00:01:50.560 but for alberta in particular because of our northern population relative to even other cities

00:01:56.480 in canada calgary and edmonton being two of the three most northern cities um we have really

00:02:02.480 short winter days and that's where it gets really hard for the circadian clock when there's not a

00:02:06.720 lot of daylight to go around the other thing is a bit of weird history for alberta that we're

00:02:11.840 actually kind of offset from the the mountain time zone anyways originally alberta was on the

00:02:16.880 pacific time zone so we've been experiencing daylight uh like time for for over 100 years

00:02:23.200 uh so we're a little more offset from the time we follow already and then going to daylight time

00:02:27.920 makes us even more offset so we'll be uh the most offset of all the cities in canada plus we have

00:02:33.120 the shortest winter days of all the cities in canada which makes it particularly important for

00:02:37.360 i think alberta to really choose the right time for us because the consequences will be more

00:02:42.320 severe for others for us than others okay so why don't we get into some of those consequences what

00:02:48.480 would this mean if we were to switch to the mdt instead right so we're a big province um so the

00:02:55.680 consequences are going to differ based on where you live so people on the east like lloyd minster

00:03:00.160 and medicine had probably won't be that that bad off uh they're going to be quite close to

00:03:04.160 to scotch one to scotch one time and it won't feel that hard for them people on the western

00:03:09.200 edge of the province um so bamf and jasper and especially as you go further north places like

00:03:14.560 grand prairie are going to be very offset and there can be a big mismatch what that mismatch

00:03:19.520 does um we call this social jet lag and that's when what your boss tells you to do and what your

00:03:25.680 your teacher tells you to do is at odds with what your body wants to do and when the days are really

00:03:31.280 short in the winter your body really doesn't like getting up before dawn uh but what daylight time

00:03:36.960 does is it tells us as a society we're all going to get up an hour earlier from now on uh and that

00:03:42.160 that's hard enough in the winter with our short winter days here in alberta it's going to be even

00:03:46.320 harder uh on daylight time and harder the further west you go harder the further north you go

00:03:52.800 so those northwest communities are going to be really challenged with this the bigger that

00:03:57.120 mismatch between um what your body wants to do and what your social schedule says uh it leads to

00:04:02.880 less sleep and lower overall health so they've compared people living within the time zone on

00:04:08.400 the eastern versus western edge and they find people in the west that have later sunrises and

00:04:12.960 later sunsets get less sleep have higher rates of heart disease higher rates of diabetes uh more

00:04:18.720 obesity uh and even cancer rates go up and it's this this strain of trying to follow a clock that

00:04:24.560 your body doesn't want to do that that leads to these health consequences it's all a little

00:04:28.640 harder for your body and all the body systems struggle a little bit more wow well i'm kind of

00:04:34.080 interested to know say you already have sleep problems and then we introduce this um time

00:04:40.560 system would that work then like worsen these uh problems yeah so it's very very good question

00:04:48.000 actually so there in when you talk about sleep disorders one that in particular is relevant

00:04:52.880 here is something called delayed sleep wake phase disorder and these are people who are chronic

00:04:57.360 night owls uh they they have a hard time getting up in the morning they like to stay up late and

00:05:02.000 turns out most people are a little trending towards owlish anyways they people generally

00:05:08.240 stay up a little later and like to sleep in a little bit more um if we move to permanent

00:05:13.360 daylight time you're gonna it's gonna those people will struggle even more and you'll get more people

00:05:17.920 who wouldn't have been diagnosed with that disorder who are now going to meet the criteria

00:05:21.680 for that because they're struggling to get up in the mornings as well. So the ones that are going

00:05:26.260 to find it the hardest are the night owls who have those regular 9 to 5 or 8 to 4 shifts. So the

00:05:33.200 earlier shift, the harder you're going to find it. If you're a night owl and you work in the

00:05:36.920 restaurant industry in the evenings, you'll probably be okay. The morning birds that don't

00:05:41.380 mind getting up early are probably going to be fine either way. But since most people tend to be

00:05:46.260 a little bit of a night owl, and if you've got that regular 9 to 5 job, that's where you're going

00:05:51.340 find the struggle okay well if more people are going to be sleep deprived and stuff would this

00:05:58.220 also mean for example there might be more like car accidents like just people not paying attention

00:06:03.820 more like negligence related to fatigue kind of stuff yeah so it's not just the health consequences

00:06:09.900 you've raised a great point um it's it's uh accidents um whether you're talking about in

00:06:14.780 behind the wheel of a car or on the job so when you're forced to get up and go to bed earlier

00:06:20.140 than your body wants you're tired uh and so that's not the time to be operating motor vehicle it's

00:06:25.340 not to be time to be operating heavy machinery on the job and so you find lapses of inattention

00:06:30.860 in people who are going to work earlier than they want to be they're not as productive they're not

00:06:34.940 as efficient on the job when other places have tried going to permanent daylight time year round

00:06:40.780 um they one of the reasons they abandoned it was the car accident so the united states tried this

00:06:45.180 in 1973 and it was because of a number of kids were killed waiting for the bus and people thought

00:06:50.620 well you know this is it's dark but it's not the darkness driving the dark is always challenging

00:06:55.340 but driving in the dark when you're tired is is the bigger problem and driving tired even with

00:06:59.360 the lights on or when it's daylight is hard so it's it's a tired drivers that i think is one of

00:07:04.780 the things we would worry about the most and and that's why the united states when they tried that

00:07:08.500 in 73 decided yeah we didn't like this idea and they moved back to springing forward and falling

00:07:13.280 back twice a year wow okay interesting um so overall do you think um i guess are you really

00:07:26.640 hoping the government doesn't implement this or yeah yeah this this is not good for alberta uh

00:07:33.520 they had a referendum on this question back in 2021 and the province narrowly voted against it

00:07:39.440 we actually did an analysis on those those data from the the referendum and it depended on where

00:07:43.840 you lived and how you voted uh and uh for the west part of the of the the province they really

00:07:49.600 didn't want to go to permanent daylight time year round so as a as a province as a whole it was

00:07:53.840 it was about 50 50 but just defeated the the referendum uh but when you look at it the people

00:07:59.120 on the west knew how bad it was going to be and and really wanted to avoid that so i think they

00:08:04.080 need to consider this a little bit more rather than rushing into it just to follow what bc's doing

00:08:09.360 take some time to think about what's right for Alberta given our northern location given how

00:08:15.200 we're already kind of offset we actually get the the late summer sunsets that everybody else has

00:08:21.460 to fiddle with our clocks to get we get those naturally we don't have to go to daylight time

00:08:25.420 to get what everybody else is chasing on the flip side though the risk they other places take when

00:08:30.220 they go to daylight time is what we experience in Alberta already on standard time so they're

00:08:36.660 making it hard for themselves in British Columbia with this change, we suffer with that exact same

00:08:41.020 thing already on standard time. It's only going to get worse if you have a daylight time.

00:08:46.940 Also, do you know of any consequences that people have observed since BC has switched to full time,

00:08:54.900 not changing the time? Well, so BC, they made the call, but it actually hasn't had any influence

00:09:00.700 on them because they sprung forward just like everybody else. So they actually haven't experienced

00:09:05.120 anything different this year than they have previously uh the yukon did this back in 2020

00:09:11.840 um and so they've been on actually in the winter if we were still on standard time the yukon

00:09:17.520 is the same clock as alberta uh when we're on standard time which is a little weird so they're

00:09:22.160 very offset from the time that they follow and uh the folks i've talked to the yukon generally don't

00:09:28.080 like this um the public find this really hard people who work outdoors actually have had to

00:09:33.120 delay their work shifts because the ground is frozen they have to have to wait for things to

00:09:37.680 warm up before they can do the work or if you're working outside in construction you got to wait

00:09:42.080 for the sun to come up so they've changed the clocks to give people more light in the evening

00:09:46.960 but then the workers don't get that evening light because they have to start their day later and

00:09:51.200 work later or some of them actually still have to end at the same time so they have less work hours

00:09:56.000 so a lot of the outdoor workers have don't enjoy it because it actually hasn't improved their

00:10:01.600 working conditions wow um well would you like to add anything else uh well every every place that's

00:10:09.840 tried this um has has uh reverted uh except for the yukon but every country that tried the most

00:10:15.040 recent one was russia so in uh 2012 they uh as a whole country they went to permanent daylight time

00:10:21.760 and that lasted two years uh so in 2014 they reverted to standard time year-round and now

00:10:26.480 12 years later they're still on standard time year-round the big problem they noticed uh which

00:10:30.880 we haven't talked about was mental health so they found a lot of increased rates of mental health

00:10:35.360 problem in the youth uh in the children um so that was one of the main reasons to get rid of it

00:10:40.640 everybody likes the thought of that extra hour in the evening thinking they will make all the

00:10:44.240 difference but when you get that that first experience with those really delayed winter

00:10:50.400 sunrises uh then you realize oh this is what i thought we were going to get uh and so everybody

00:10:56.160 that's tried it um has has reverted i have one question why do you think they saw more uh mental

00:11:02.880 health issues in youth particularly well so people who live in northern countries like canada and

00:11:08.560 russia experience what's called seasonal affective disorder and it's tied to daylight um and so the

00:11:14.160 treatment for it is actually um a light box a bright light box and this extra bright light

00:11:19.360 actually seems to help with mood and there's been some companies here in alberta um that actually

00:11:23.600 have developed them and sold these these devices but the problem is um so when you shift that

00:11:30.160 daylight you lose the morning light that's so important to the mental health to the brain health

00:11:35.440 uh and um so when you delay that sunrise uh you lose that and that's one of the reasons that you

00:11:42.160 get these higher races of seasonal affective disorder it's less of an issue for the united

00:11:46.000 states they're further south so all the hard consequences that we're worried about here in

00:11:50.080 canada they're not going to get those same ones down south their days in the winter a little bit

00:11:53.920 longer so it's not quite as bad but it's one of the reasons why i think in canada and alberta

00:11:58.720 in particular we need to think about this more carefully and not just follow what the united

00:12:02.240 states is doing because the consequences for them very different from the consequences for us

00:12:07.680 okay well said well i really appreciate you coming on the show today uh yeah thank you

00:12:14.560 well thank you for having me thanks okay well if you guys enjoyed this you can watch more of our

00:12:20.240 videos on our youtube channel it's western standard and you can also check out our actual

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Western Standard - May 26, 2026

Psychologist says Alberta should stay on MST instead of DST

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