By William C. Shelton

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries and letters to the Editor of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

Sunday 2:00 a.m. officially marked the beginning of my annual descent into Winter funk. That’s when we all “fell back,” setting our clocks an hour later.

Over the four months between then and the second Sunday in March my moods trend toward the darkness of the season.  I sleep and eat too much, have difficulty waking up, and feel sluggish for much of the day. It’s more difficult for me to concentrate, and I tend to isolate.

Those are symptoms of SAD—Seasonal Affective Disorder. SAD’s prevalence ranges from 1.4% of the population in sunny Florida to 9.9% in frozen Alaska, which tells us something about its causes. Here in Massachusetts, the incidence is 8%, while an additional 17.1% of us experience “winter blues,” a less severe mood slump.

SAD’s prevalence seems to be correlated with how close to the poles people live, and therefore, how much sunlight they experience in fall and winter. So does suicide and alcoholism. As a Canadian psychiatric study found, “There is a positive linear relation between the variation in suicide rate and geographic latitude.” It concluded that, “The variation in light-dark cycles is superimposed upon human mood.”

 Living in the nation’s—and the time zone’s—easternmost major metropolitan area means that the late December sun sets a little after 4:00 p.m. That makes life less enjoyable for more people than those of us with depressive tendencies. Kids have little time to play outside after school. Commuting home from work by bicycle becomes more dangerous.

Shifting back and forth between times impairs our cognition, reduces our response time, and increases our stress. I’m guessing that the latter goes back to natural selection among our prehistoric and primate ancestors whose running around after dark increased their chances of becoming some other creature’s dinner.

The shift also increases traffic accidents, workplace injuries, headaches, and heart attacks. One study found a 5.7% increase in workplace injuries in the week after the start of Daylight Savings Time (DST). The most likely culprit is sleep cycle disruption.

These problems could all be solved by simply staying on DST year around. Or by joining the Canadian Maritimes, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and parts of South America in the Atlantic Standard Time Zone.

That’s what a committee established in August is studying. Massachusetts law allows residents to submit legislative “bills by request.” In behalf of Quincy resident Tom Emswiler, his Senator, John Keenan inserted a tiny section (136) into an economic development bill (H.4569), passed by the Legislature this year.

It authorized the committee to study the “practical, economic, fiscal and health related impacts” of adopting Atlantic Standard Time year-round. It will issue its report by the end of March.

Aside from potentially restoring my sunny disposition, the change could bring other benefits. When employees have to leave work in darkness, they are easier targets for criminals. A Review of Economics and Statistics study found that the 2007 expansion of DST reduced robberies by 7%, producing a $59 million saving in social costs per year. Apparently robbers aren’t early risers.

A Rutgers University study found that full-year DST would reduce pedestrian fatalities by 171 per year, and vehicle occupant fatalities by 195 per year.

Retailers and many economists like the idea. Consumer spending rises when DST starts and falls when it ends, although I’m not sure that increased spending is a good thing. But the injunction to “make hay while the sun shines” seems to have a basis in neuroscience. People are more productive during daylight hours.

And the productivity that we lose when we “spring forward” in March costs the U.S. about $1.65 per person, according to the Lost-Hour Economic Index. Boston suffers a $1.68 per capita cost.

When DST was first decreed during World War I, its purpose was to save energy, not to provide farmers more work time, as I was taught in school. In fact, farmers opposed DST because it gave them less time to get their milk and crops to market.

But studies are contradictory regarding whether DST does save energy. A 2008 U.S. Department of Energy report found a 0.5% decrease in electricity use per day since the 2005 DST expannsion. But a 2011 study by two economists found that after some Indiana counties began observing DST, residential electricity consumption increased as much as 4%.

Nevertheless, on balance it seems that having an hour’s more sunshine at the end of the day would make our lives a little better. The sun will, indeed, come up tomorrow. Let’s make the most of it.