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This data is fascinating and suggests that government policy should take note. Since sleep hygiene has strong effect on overall health, perhaps changing our policy of time regulation and expected work and school hours should be based on maximizing quality of sleep, rather than a naive attempt at maximizing daylight utilization with sudden artificial clock changes? Imagine a system of timekeeping that set the clock at daybreak instead of local noon... gradually changing from "standard time" to "daylight savings time".

Some research is showing that adolescents also sleep later, their circadian cycle showing a phase shift from what younger or older people follow. Some high schools have shown foresight in using later school hours. Perhaps that should be shifted to a seasonally adjusted time that will keep adolescents at peak sleep hygiene? I personally believe they should.

As a personal anecdote. For the past five years, I've had a work situation that allowed me greater flexibility in my work hours. I've eliminated the use of the alarm clock (save for extraordinary occasions when I've had to get up at early hours to catch a flight or make an early meeting some driving distance away). I noticed that my wake time followed the seasons, usually awakening when the sun was fully up, but still very low in the sky. I feel better and less stressed than I did earlier in my life, despite actually having greater job responsibility and stress. I'm looking forward to the return to standard time coming up soon, not to sleep in that extra hour, since I will wake up at the same time relative to dawn... but to get to work at a clock time that is more in step with the rest of the world that has to follow the clock. They will be coming in later, according to daybreak. But I will be arriving at the same number of minutes past daybreak, every day.

--Candice H. Brown Elliott