For children in the 48 states that observe daylight saving time, the second Sunday in March may feel like cause to celebrate. Bumping the clocks up an hour provides an immediate extra hour of daylight and kicks off the start of warmer weather and increasingly longer days.
But health experts warn that, especially in the short term, the sudden leap forward by an hour can disrupt students’ sleep patterns, many of which are already compromised.
“Sleep deprivation in kids is a huge issue,” said Lynn Nelson, president-elect of the National Association of School Nurses. “Around 35 percent of our school-age kids don’t get enough sleep. And there are well-documented impacts this has on physical health, mental health, and academic success.”
And daylight saving time makes sleep deprivation worse, say health experts. That’s why advocacy groups such as the Coalition for Permanent Standard Time, supported by The American Academy of Sleep Medicine, are pushing for an end to the practice.
Here’s a glimpse at which students are most likely to be adversely affected come Monday morning, plus a look at shifting attitudes around the hundred-year-old practice.
How daylight saving time came to be, and what Trump says about it
The United States adopted daylight saving time in 1918 during World War I to conserve electricity, according to historians. After the war ended, it was applied inconsistently until 1966, when the Uniform Time Act passed, standardizing the practice nationwide.
Today, with the exception of Arizona and Hawaii, all states continue to observe it, starting the second Sunday in March and ending on the first Sunday in November, when residents turn their clocks back an hour. Over the years, numerous critics of the practice have attempted to put a stop to the twice-a-year changing of the clocks.
In December, then President-elect Donald Trump called to eliminate daylight saving time, referring to it as costly and inconvenient. But on Thursday, he indicated that he likely wouldn’t move forward with plans to eliminate the practice, citing insufficient public interest in making the change.
“I assumed people would like to have more light later,” Trump told reporters. “But some people want to have more light earlier because they don’t want to take their kids to school in the dark.”
Just a couple days before, Trump’s close adviser Elon Musk had posted on X asking, “If daylight savings time change is canceled, do you prefer an hour earlier or later?” The poll received 1.3 million responses. Incidentally, votes for “an hour later” won by a moderate margin: 58.1 percent versus 41.9 percent.
Who’s most at risk for sleep deprivation?
Daylight saving time is akin to setting our body’s natural 24-hour clock ahead by an hour. It should come as no surprise, then, that many people will feel less alert in the morning immediately after the clocks shift ahead.
That’s bad news for adolescents, 80 percent of whom don’t get enough sleep on any given night, according to a 2024 poll from the National Sleep Foundation. In that same poll, nearly three-quarters of teens surveyed reported that insufficient sleep had a negative effect on their emotional well-being. Multiple studies bear this out.
A 2024 review of multiple studies on adolescents, sleep habits, and mental health revealed a direct link between poor sleep habits and an increase in mental health issues. Specifically, poor sleep habits increased the likelihood of mental health diagnoses, symptom severity, suicide risk, and negative school experience.
Many critics of daylight saving time also want to see school start later for adolescents, an idea that has received vocal support from health experts. In 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a policy statement recommending that school districts push start times of middle and high schools to 8:30 a.m. or later to help adolescents achieve the recommended eight-and-a-half to 10 hours of sleep per night.
Despite the push for change, most teens continue to start school before their internal clocks tell them it’s time to wake up.
“We know adolescents are sleep-deprived and that their body rhythms already struggle to match the natural circadian rhythms,” said George Theoharis, a professor in the teaching and leadership department at Syracuse University. “If we are serious about addressing that, changing high school start times would be an important step. … But in most places we have stuck with the outdated idea that high school starts early.”
Theoharis notes that teens aren’t the only students likely to struggle with getting enough sleep.
Sleep deprivation, he said, “is an ongoing challenge and struggle, particularly with families that are either in turmoil or families that are really facing significant economic challenges that disrupt their routines and lives.”
A 2023 study examining sleep health disparities among children found a link between poverty and poor sleep health in young children. Notably, these researchers observed that consistently healthy sleep patterns drive children’s cognitive development.
What schools should expect the day after clocks ‘spring forward’
Most schools across the country will open Monday with students—and even staff—tired from the loss of an hour of sleep.
Theoharis suggests easing students, who may be less alert than usual, into the school week. “It would probably be a good time to try out some fun, engaging lessons and reduce homework,” he said.
School nurses might also see an uptick in student visits to the health room.
“We often have kids come in and just not feel well, who need to lie down for a little while,” said Nelson, from the National Association of School Nurses. “I think it’s often related to a lack of sleep the night before.”
