Have been going on for a long time. Doctors are trying to prove the harm of this action, and industrialists go on about the supposedly colossal economic benefits. Let's try to figure it out.
The clock hands are translated twice a year in more than 100 countries of the world. This is done in order to save energy. Transfer is carried out at night to avoid overlaps in air and rail traffic. But in medical circles, disputes about the impact on the state of health of this economically justified measure do not subside.
Negative from the clock change
Scientists around the world are constantly researching the impact of clock shifting on human health. The results of the research are as follows: a violation of the natural rhythm of life negatively affects the body, however, the degree of impact depends on physical health. So, for example, it was noticed that after the transfer of the arrows, there is a surge in the exacerbation of such diseases as hypertension, osteochondrosis, arthritis, etc. But even absolutely healthy people note general malaise, increased fatigue, sleep disturbances, irritability, etc. This, in turn, leads to a weakening of the body, it is necessary to take measures to increase immunity. The consequences that the notorious fatigue and drowsiness cause are terrifying: the number of industrial accidents, road accidents, suicides, domestic quarrels, etc. is sharply increasing.
Daylight Saving Time
All these troubles people associate with the transition to winter or summer time. At the same time, the most it hurts to change the clock from winter to summer time, when the night becomes shorter by 1 hour. Scientists believe that this is due not only to the fact that a person has to sleep less, but also to the fact that winter time is a natural one, according to which all living things on earth live. It is noteworthy that some researchers have found that in the first days after the transition to winter time, people are much less likely to complain, in particular, of an increase in blood pressure. This once again proves that the human body thus “welcomes” the return to the time according to which all living nature lives.
It is noted that even healthy children react negatively to the translation of the arrows, although they quickly adapt to the new rhythm of life. 2-3 days after the transition to another time, children enter their usual mode, while many parents note that their child becomes lethargic, capricious, less interested in the outside world. And, if parents at home make an adjustment for an hour in the daily routine, then this does not happen in children's institutions, which is difficult for children to tolerate.
Potential benefit from translating arrows
And in conclusion, I would like to say about the benefit from the clock change to which our state aspires. In fact, the savings are not so solid. According to various estimates, per capita savings do not even reach 100 kWh. For today in central region In Russia, the cost of 1 kWh varies from 1.9 to 3 rubles. So it turns out that everyone saves a maximum of 300 rubles for the state. Is it justified? The amount is absolutely insignificant for any resident of Russia.
Supporters of the clock change argue that at this time the health status of only those who have chronic diseases worsens, and the adaptation period lasts no more than 3 days. Probably, they do not think that there are much more citizens with certain health problems than healthy ones. And officials are unlikely to take into account that we lose much more by sitting on forced sick leave. Yes, and the purchase of drugs takes much more than 300 rubles a year. So it turns out that, saving for the state, we sacrifice both our budget and our health.
At the end of 2011, Russia moved the clock forward one hour and switched to summer time, introduced in the USSR in 1981. The fall return to "normal" times has been cancelled. The country began to operate a time calculation system that was ahead of astronomical time by two hours.
This reform from the very beginning caused an ambiguous attitude among the inhabitants of Russia. Many complained of fatigue and lack of sleep. Children were forced to go to kindergartens and schools in the dark.
And here's the good news. Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 21, 2014 signed the law on the transition to winter time.
According to the law, on October 26 at 02.00 in most subjects of the Russian Federation, the clocks were set back an hour and there will be no further seasonal translation of the hands.
Apparently common sense took over the ephemeral benefit.
Many countries are switching to the so-called "winter" time. And why do you need to switch to winter and summer time?
Historical reference
Benjamin Franklin was the first to raise the issue of transferring arrows during his stay in France. As ambassador to France, Franklin noticed that Parisians went to bed at sunset and got up at dawn. The scientist considered this custom worthy of imitation and called in the "Parisian pamphlets" to follow this example. According to an American scientist, life according to light time makes a person "healthier, richer and smarter."
Briton William Willet was able to draw public attention to the issue of the translation of arrows. As an avid golfer, he hated the situation where twilight had to stop the game in the evenings, while in the morning the British would wake up precious hours of light.
He proposed to “save” the daytime twice a year to translate the arrows by 80 minutes. This was supposed to save candles and make it possible to work more efficiently in the summer. However, the British government year after year rejected Willett's proposal due to lack of evidence of economic benefits. William Willett died in 1915, less than a year from his idea.
Summer time was first introduced in Germany in 1916 - apparently to reduce coal consumption and simplify light masking (the First World War was on).
In Russia, the transition to daylight saving time was first implemented in July 1917 and was valid until 1930, when the clock hands were moved one hour ahead of standard time. This time was called "maternity", as it was introduced by the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars on June 16, 1930. Additionally, since 1981, summer time has been regularly introduced in the USSR. In March 1991, maternity and summer time were abolished in Russia, but in November of the same year both maternity and summer time were reintroduced.
Currently, 76 countries use DST in one form or another (of which 10 countries do not use it in all regions), and 128 countries do not. In the northern hemisphere, daylight saving time is used in the USA, Canada, European countries, and throughout Russia. In the southern hemisphere, summer time is used in Australia, New Zealand, Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, Chile. The equatorial countries do not use summer time. Japan, China, Singapore, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, and Kazakhstan also refused to introduce it.
Interesting fact: Some high-tech and strategic facilities do not implement daylight saving time for security reasons, as this can potentially lead to failures in the synchronization of complex systems and the issuance of incorrect data. So, for example, the Russian TsUP and all ground stations tracking work on standard time, and ESA and ISS - on Greenwich Mean Time. Satellite navigation systems have their own system time and also do not use daylight saving time.
Causes
The official and most common explanation for the need to translate the arrows is as follows: "The translation of the arrows allows you to reduce energy loads and improve ecological situation, ensures the stable operation of the country's unified energy system, the consistency of transport cargo flows and communications, the organization of television and radio broadcasting."
According to official data provided by RAO "UES of Russia", switching points in the country saves 4.4 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. This is about 0.5 percent of the total amount of electricity consumed in Russia, and in per capita terms - as much as 26 kilowatt-hours per year! (I would gladly pay for these 26 kilowatts, so as not to rebuild every six months).
However, as practice shows, the translation of the arrows has a sharply negative impact on the state of human health, knocking down his biological rhythm. If young people can still cope with this, then children, and especially the elderly, have a much harder time. Especially in the spring, when an hour of sleep is also taken away from an already weakened body as a security for the "credit" issued by the vitamin-rich autumn. As well as possible, the following statistics testify to this.
In the first week after the change to the new time, the number of ambulance calls increases by 12%:
accidents - by 30%,
suicides - by 66%,
heart attacks - as much as 75%.
And only after 7-10 days these figures gradually return to normal values. The current system of counting time leads to a violation of the vital and genetically mediated rhythm "wakefulness - sleep". The use of the "summer-winter" time regime leads to the forced awakening of people for half a year an hour earlier and to an unnatural rhythm of work throughout the autumn-winter months. This, according to experts, leads not only to an increase in the incidence of the body, but also to the threat of an increase in the number of traffic accidents and even an increase in suicide attempts; the number of those wishing to commit suicide is increasing across the country by 50-60%.
Doctors even identified a new disease, desynchronosis (disruption of normal life), provoking depression, hypertensive crises, and heart attacks.
According to some researchers, saving energy hardly justifies the deterioration in well-being, performance and health - categories that can also be represented by economic calculations.
Sandford Fleming (1827−1915) put an end to the confusion over time by proposing that the time zone system be based on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
In order not to enter local time for each degree of longitude, the Earth's surface is conventionally divided into 24 time zones. There are countries and areas (Iran, Afghanistan, India, Nepal, Myanmar, etc.) in which the local time differs from the standard zone by an additional 30 or even 45 minutes. A map of time zones can be studied in detail on the World Time Zone website.
Countries marked in blue are using daylight saving time. Orange - countries that have canceled this transition; in red - countries that have never introduced it
In order to find out how justified the seasonal translation of the hands is, it is necessary to answer the question of what time we live in, or rather, how exactly we determine the daily time. From time immemorial, mankind lived according to "solar time": noon always fell at the moment when the Sun was at its zenith. Thus, the formal middle of the day always coincided with the lightest time of the day. From the point of view of each individual person, this method of counting time is optimal, because the biological clock of any living organism is guided, first of all, by the degree of illumination. And no matter what “owls” and “larks” say about themselves, we all belong to the species Homo sapiens leading a daily lifestyle. Therefore, it is most natural for us to get up at dawn (or a little earlier) and go to bed at sunset (or a little later), showing the greatest activity during daylight hours.
A significant disadvantage of solar time is the fact that for each locality located to the west or east of an arbitrary point, its own time turns out to be correct. Up until the 19th century. this did not pose much of a problem, but as railroads and communication technologies developed, solar time became more and more inconvenient. The trains moved so fast that it became very difficult for them to make accurate schedules - after all, in the process of moving along the earth's meridians, the difference between the clock readings at the starting point and local time gradually increased. Telegraph operators did not fare well when they needed to transmit a message exactly on time: for each settlement, they had to calculate their own time correction.
To solve the problem of synchronization, European countries began to introduce a common time on their territory, usually tied to the solar time of the capital. In a big and conservative Russian Empire it was used only on railways and on telegraph lines. Trains and telegrams ran according to Petersburg time, but each city lived according to the time of its own meridian. In the US and Canada, the situation was even stranger. Not only did each state have its own time, but so did most of the railroad companies whose lines crossed the continent from ocean to ocean. Engineers and passengers had to constantly rack their brains, linking the time of the train with the common time of the state and the indications of the station clock. One can imagine the confusion that followed when two railway lines intersected at the same place.
One for all
A way out was found by a Canadian communications engineer named Sandforf Flemming, who had worked on the railroad for many years. He proposed introducing Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and dividing Earth into 24 sectors of 15 degrees each, setting in each of them its own common time. This solution made it possible to significantly simplify the calculation of time corrections: the difference between the two time zones always remained a multiple of a whole hour. At the same time, the deviation from natural solar time should not exceed 30 minutes. The United States accepted the idea in 1883, and a year later, an agreement on time zones was signed by 26 more states. It was decided that the boundaries of the belts should not necessarily run strictly along the meridians - for the sake of convenience, they are consistent with state and administrative boundaries. Therefore, in some regions living according to standard time, the deviation from solar time can reach an hour or more. Today, most of the world lives according to standard time - simply because it is convenient.
The next step was the idea of summer and winter time. It was first expressed by the London contractor William Willett in an article entitled "The Waste of Daylight" published in 1907. Willett suggested setting time 20 minutes forward every Sunday in April, and then playing the difference back to September, and argued that this would allow the country to reduce lighting costs. He reasoned as follows: it so happened that in the summer, city residents get up and go to work when it is already dawn, and go to bed after dark, because of which they have to spend extra money on lighting their homes at night. Why not move the hands forward a little in the summer so that the rise time moves closer to dawn? Willett's idea was implemented by the British government in 1916. Quite quickly, the British came up with a scheme with a one-time translation of the hands for one hour. After the end of the First World War, their experience began to gradually be adopted by other states, which saw a good opportunity to save money in the seasonal translation of the arrows.
Russian way
Meanwhile, our country, as usual, followed its own unique path. Before the revolution, all of Russia lived according to solar time - simply because the possible transition to the belt system was perceived by the tsarist government as "shaking the foundations" and "trampling on the holy identity." In 1918, the Soviet government introduced standard time in the country, highlighting 11 time zones on the territory of the USSR. In 1931, a decree was issued, moving the time forward 1 hour relative to the zone time - in order to save electricity. In 1981, in addition to the "mortem time", the summer translation of the hands was also set for another 1 hour ahead. In 1991, maternity time was abolished throughout the territory of the Union, but a few months later it was restored along with the seasonal switchover. This order continues to this day. Given that the average person gets up at 7 am and goes to bed at 11 pm, it may seem quite reasonable. However, the reality is somewhat more complicated than it looks at first glance.
Indeed, the summer switchover reduces the direct costs of lighting, but no one really knows how much exactly. In summer, electricity consumption is in any case less than in winter, primarily because much less energy is spent on heating. Therefore, it is very difficult to assess the economic effect of summer time. According to rough estimates made by RAO UES, the switchover saves about 4.4 billion kilowatt-hours annually. In fact, this figure is very small - for each inhabitant it turns out 26 kWh, or 3 W per hour - less than the permissible error in measuring the power of an incandescent lamp. And in terms of money, it turns out that each of us saves no more than 2 rubles on lighting. per month.
Meanwhile, the transfer of arrows in itself is associated with very significant expenses. Take at least passenger trains, which once a year have to stand on the stage for an extra hour to arrive at their destination exactly on schedule. This hour is wasted both by passengers and Railway. In connection with the violent violation of the established biological rhythm, some people, after the transfer of time, worsen their sleep and decrease their working capacity. All this leads to significant losses, which should more than cover the direct savings on consecration. In general, from a medical point of view, summer time is an absolute evil. Within a few days after switching the arrows, doctors note a significant increase in the number of heart attacks, strokes, suicides and various accidents, which means that we have to pay for the very dubious savings in electricity with human lives.
Interestingly, the practice of switching arrows is not at all as common as it is commonly believed - summer time exists in only 29% of the world's countries. It was abandoned by almost all the states that emerged on the spot. former USSR(including all the Baltic countries), as well as such industrial giants as Japan and China. Apparently, we should do the same a long time ago. Another thing is that an extra daylight hour in the evening should in itself play a completely positive role, because it leads to a more complete coverage of daylight hours, which means it brings us closer to a more natural biological rhythm. Therefore, the most optimal solution seems to be a return to the standard time, which would be one hour ahead of the standard time - both in summer and in winter, without any translation of the hands.
Analysts have counted seven initiatives by ex-president Medvedev, which are curtailed by the current president. One of them is the abolition of the transfer of hour hands to winter time. Another time reform that affected Russia was carried out in the summer of 2011. By presidential decree, the whole country, having changed the clocks to daylight saving time in the spring, remained in it forever. After the reform, the difference between clock and astronomical time was two hours. But such a difference, instead of the expected economic effect and favorable impact on the health of citizens, brought a number of inconveniences and became a reason for discussion. Practice has shown an ambiguous perception by people of the change in the temporary regime, which has become familiar. show that many Russians, especially in the eastern regions, consider the permanent transition to daylight saving time inappropriate.
Citizens express their dissatisfaction based on personal feelings and impressions. Many people are not happy with the fact that they spend at work and leave home and return in the dark. The cancellation of the transition to winter time has caused chronic sleep deprivation and fatigue. Reliable information about negative impact life according to summer time on the health of citizens official science does not voice. But, nevertheless, many people recognize such a temporary regime as uncomfortable and advocate approaching the average. The President of Russia is among them.
Undoubtedly, adaptation to constant seasonal changes in the time cycle at the moments of transition from summer to winter time negatively affects the population. It is difficult to find at least one person who has not experienced the “charms” of adaptation. Moreover, according to doctors, in the first days after the transition to a new hourly schedule, the number of ambulance calls increases, stress resistance decreases, and the number of heart attacks increases. At the same time, the transition to daylight saving time and vice versa does not give a special economic effect. But even a two-hour difference with the biological one does not cause optimism.
Precisely because such a reform of the time did not justify itself, in September 2012 a draft of a new law was submitted to the State Duma of the Russian Federation, and subsequently redirected to the government. The cancellation of daylight saving time was initiated by S.Kalashnikov, Chairman of the Committee of the State Duma of the Russian Federation. The bill, as noted by its author, is relevant and requires prompt consideration and support. The chief sanitary doctor of Russia G. Onishchenko admitted that the return of the country to astronomical time would be the most natural for the population. He also expressed the opinion that the transition to seasonal time for the sake of the economy and to the detriment of health is inappropriate. Thus, the abolition of daylight saving time is a matter of time and common sense. Considering that not only comfort, but also the health of citizens depends on the decision of the government, it remains to hope for a comprehensive and in-depth study of the problem by statesmen.
The first persons of the state have already expressed their point of view. The President noted that he does not like to live like summer in winter. He left the consideration of the bill in A. Prime Minister Medvedev, in response to journalists' questions, suggested holding a vote in a number of regions on the advisability of a new temporary system. He also acknowledged that daylight saving time is a matter of choice, and if people are in favor of abolishing the reform, then so be it.
In the USSR, seasonal switching began to be practiced in 1981. To date, this is carried out by the countries of the European Union, Australia, New Zealand, North America and Mexico. In total, 78 states use daylight saving time.
