Whether standard time or summer time is the better choice here is something I hold no opinion on, but the sheer hysteria some people here express is very overblown.
This why I, personally, would prefer standard time over DST. I really hate early mornings, and DST causes all mornings to be one hour earlier.
EDIT: Googled a quick link about this: https://www.sciencealert.com/a-neurologist-explains-why-dayl...
https://healthblog.uofmhealth.org/heart-health/why-daylight-...
At any rate, yes, the sun rising at 4am would also stress me out. In fact, given that I'm in a position to tell you what it's like in a place where that happens for part of the year, I can inform you from personal experience that it is indeed disruptive to circadian rhythm to have the sun rise even "moderately" early.
I'm sure people in Alaska think you're a great person for telling them they don't matter, though.
Here in Seattle, sunrise is as early as 5:10am or so in the middle of June. However, with civil twilight included, you're looking at a pretty bright sky from 4:30am to 10pm.
We're not even that far north here, but waking up out of a light sleep at 4am can certainly be bothersome.
How about DST with a 12 hour offset?
My takeaway is that it's a matter of personal predisposition. Maybe people should move to the east or west end of their timezone based on their light-vs-dark time-of-day preferences. :)
The first winter I was in Hamburg, I think we got 10 hours of sun all of December.
(In Berlin we often have a non-stop gray sky pretty often from somewhere in December to "mid" or so February with just a few days exceptions, especially January is super painful. I honestly would prefer shorter colder but clear-skyed days with snow).
I do NOT understand the complaining, I'm sorry. First of all, "grey" isn't dark - grey overcast days are still plenty bright. Blue skies are lovely, sure. But you know what every place I've lived in gets for all that rain? LUSH, GREEN FOILAGE. Grass, trees, everywhere. LIFE.
You know what else comes with all that rain? Temperate climates. It's never too hot or too cold. We don't need airconditioning in the summer (except for a couple of days), nor have to shovel snow in the winter (except for a couple of days).
I look at something like Arizona that people rave about the climate over and I see dusty desolate deserts, where people have to spend exhorbitant amounts of water to keep tiny patches of parks and grasses alive.
I understand comparing tropical oceanfront climates like Florida and California unfavourably - there is a reason we think of these areas as vacation getaway hotspots. But most people complaining aren't from those climates - they are just from other parts of the world that are more "seasonal" and so they expect big snowstorms in the winter, and long hot days without rain in the summer. But all complaints about needing the sun, or the lack of vitamin D, are all subjective personal experiences.
Having grown up and lived with it all my life, I think it's highly offensive how people complain about the rain without acknowledging all the benefits that it brings.
Changing the clock isn't going to create more hours of sunlight (except arguably if you switch to DST at noon and back to winter time at midnight).
I don't think putting people on antidepressants is a good answer, either. Those are meant to be used for about a year to get people back to normal.
Presumably this has more to do with the total hours of light in winter being lower, not what time of the clock they correspond to.
I don't care about the hour of more or less sleep, I don't even notice it nor do I ever suffer from jet lags.
It's the torturous period from roughly October to March where daylight roughly aligns with the workday or less. Meaning I drive in the dark to work, sit inside all day under artificial light, then drive back home in the dark. Months without daylight, and the little you get to experience is moody, not direct sun light.
The flip side is that we get ridiculous amounts of light in the summer. All the way up to 10:30 PM and even around midnight there's still a hint of faint light.
http://www.webexhibits.org/daylightsaving/franklin3.html
Here is a quote of how he suggest to change their lazy manners:
"Every morning, as soon as the sun rises, let all the bells in every church be set ringing; and if that is not sufficient?, let cannon be fired in every street, to wake the sluggards effectually, and make them open their eyes to see their true interest."
To me it bears so much resemblance to people's imminent fear of having a late sunrise.
Same thing happened in Chile a while back, the entire country was left on "summer time" which then meant that the southern tip of Chile had very, very little sun during the winter during the mornings, the "proper day time" was notoriously "shifted"
At Anchorage's latitude, two weeks after changing back to standard time, sunrise is back at the same time it was before the change, and mornings will get a lot darker until you reach midwinter.
In California, the effect of the change is noticeable, because the difference in daylight hours is small over the year, so people who have only ever lived in California or similar are the ones complaining about "having to go to school in the dark" as if that was some weird anomaly or tragedy.