The direct health-care costs associated with social jet lag and disruptions to our circadian rhythm have been estimated to be at least $2.35 billion annually in the U.S. In addition, yearly productivity losses associated with missed work or less-productive work as a result of social jet lag are equivalent to 4.4 million days of work.
It’s time for a complete overhaul of how we keep track of time — a practical solution that saves time and money and is good for our health, too.
We should scrap our current system of time zones and daylight savings in favor of worldwide adoption of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), also known as Greenwich Mean Time. This would mean that everyone’s watches around the world would be set at exactly the same time. The only difference they would notice, depending on where they are located, would be where the sun is in the sky at a particular hour. Thus midday would be as it is today in all parts of the world, when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky. What would be different under UTC is the time on your watch. In New York, midday would no longer be 12:00 p.m., but rather 5:00 p.m. (17:00 UTC).
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