Stop moving the clocks back? Scientists say keeping daylight saving time isn’t the answer.

This Sunday at 2 a.m., the clocks fall back to standard time, and many scientists will try again to end the debate over the extra hour of sleep.

U.S. House lawmakers, including half of Maryland’s delegation, support continuing daylight saving time, and voted to pass the Sunshine Protection Act in July. A YouGov poll released in March showed more people also prefer permanently springing forward than falling back.

But for years, experts have argued that’s the wrong choice, including Vadim Zipunnikov, a Johns Hopkins University professor of biostatistics who uses wearable technology to study sleep and circadian rhythms.

“If we are going to lock the clock, most in the scientific community agree we ought to lock it on standard time,” he said.

Zipunnikov says it comes down to choosing one more hour of sun in the morning or in the evening. And it’s far better to have it in the morning because the sun alerts us that it’s time to start our day.

Depriving ourselves of this natural rhythm can have health repercussions.

Researchers at Stanford Medicine found that permanent standard time would result in a lower prevalence of strokes and obesity. Permanent daylight saving time had fewer benefits, and changing twice a year — in November and March — was the worst choice.

Groups including the National Sleep Foundation and the American Medical Association also endorse year-round standard time, citing the extra car crashes, heart attacks and cases of depression in the days after the switch to daylight saving time.

Zipunnikov says people just don’t like giving up late afternoon sun, especially in winter when there is less total daylight. In Maryland, he said, there are about 10 daylight hours in January, compared with 15 hours in June.

But he said people likely notice the body naturally works better in standard time, even when it has to shift to standard time. Just don’t sleep the whole extra hour on Sunday morning. Give yourself 20 minutes or so the first morning, allowing time to ease into the new schedule, Zipunnikov said.

In general, he advises people to maintain a consistent sleep schedule, going to bed and waking at the same time. Also, keep your bedroom dark at night and light in the morning. That should make it easier to fall asleep, stay asleep and be more functional all day.

And if people need reminding, prolonging daylight saving time has already been tried.

In 1974, as American lawmakers extended daylight saving time for two years in an effort to maximize evening light and mitigate a national oil crisis. The public also backed this plan, at least at first.

After 10 months, people began revolting over the morning darkness, and it was scrapped.

It didn’t seem to save much energy anyway, something historians already knew. Daylight saving time was initially enacted across the United States during World War I for the same purpose, though Hawaii never observed it and Arizona only did for one year in the 1960s.

Zipunnikov is hoping history won’t repeat itself, noting that the Senate has not acted on the latest daylight saving time bill in the House.

And that YouGov poll that found support for daylight saving time also found most people just wanted the clock to stop changing.