What Time Is It?

So how are you doing with the time change?  Did you spring forward?

Thanks to technology, I don't have to set as many clocks as I used to set during a time change.  I still had to change the clock on the microwave and the oven.  I still have a big battery-operated clock to change which will require a ladder.  Some of you that still have a VCR, it is probably continuing to flash 12:00 anyway.

When I first started working in Information Technology, we had to bring the entire network down to change the time or we would get relentless phone calls about the time.

The switch to Daylight Saving Time (DST) is always harder for me than when we switch back to standard time in the fall.  I'm not sure if it's losing the hour of sleep but something inside makes it difficult to get in sync for the days following the change.

Now there are plans to "lock the clock" and keep DST permanent.  I'm still unsure if that's a good idea or not.

Scientific American reports that neurologists say that our bodies fare better when aligned with the natural light of standard time.  I think I agree with this opinion.  

The biggest advantage of daylight-saving time is that it provides an extra hour of light in the late afternoon or evening, depending on time of year, for sports, shopping or eating outside. However, exposure to light later into the evening for almost eight months during daylight saving time comes at a price. This extended evening light delays the brain’s release of melatonin, the hormone that promotes drowsiness, which in turn interferes with sleep and causes us to sleep less overall. 

Signed into law on March 19, 1918 by President Woodrow Wilson, the Standard Time Act introduced daylight saving time, permitting additional daylight hours to be added into the day to help save energy costs during World War I,  During World War II, Congress passed in February 1942 a law creating a national daylight saving time to help conserve fuel and "promote national security and defense," and earned the nickname "war time," the Defense Department reported.  

When the war ended in 1945, the law was repealed, and individual states could establish their own standard time.

The U.S. Department of Transportation said states may exempt themselves from observing daylight saving time by state law under the power of the Uniform Time Act of 1966. If a state chooses to observe daylight saving time, it must begin and end on federally mandated dates.  The Uniform Act was initially established to save energy by pushing more daylight into the evening hours. The daylight-saving time system was standardized to remain from the last Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October. In 2005, the law was amended under President George W. Bush to extend daylight saving time from the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November.

Facts about DST:

• About 70 countries observe daylight saving time nationwide or in certain regions. Most African and Asian countries, including India, China and Japan, skip the clock change altogether.  Not all U.S. states practice daylight saving time, either. Hawaii and Arizona are on permanent standard time, as are Guam, American Samoa, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
• According to a 2020 study in Current Biology, spring DST significantly increased risk of a fatal motor vehicle accident (MVA) by 6 percent.
• A 2014 study by the University of Michigan Frankel Cardiovascular Center shows a 24 percent jump in the number of heart attacks on the Monday after DST compared with other Mondays throughout the year. A 2019 study also substantiated a modest uptick in risk of heart attack after DST transitions.
• A study in the state of Indiana found that when they switched to DST in 2006, energy usage actually increased. But in 2017, an analysis of 44 such studies on the topic of DST and use of electricity reported a slight savings of 0.34 percent during daylight saving time.
• Research has shown that cluster headaches are more likely within two weeks of the time change.

From what I've read in my research about this change to DST is that there isn't a lot of positive news about it.  For me, I like having more daylight at the end of the day to enjoy being outside or doing yard work but even with standard time, the days are going to get longer anyway.  I'm not so sure it needs to be altered.  

But what's done is done.  Go get another cup of coffee and ease into the forced one-hour trip into the future.