UNITED STATES—The debate continues and to be honest, I don’t think it will ever end, but I don’t personally think it should. I am referring to Daylight Saving Time. This past weekend, all Americans lost an hour of sleep, and there is this kerfuffle about whether we should end it. I rarely hear people complaining when they get that extra hour of sleep when we set our clocks back in November each year. In addition, you’re speaking to someone who has to work that day we lose an extra hour of sleep.
I literally cannot recall a time when I didn’t have to work when we sprung back an hour or sprung forward an hour. I do have trouble sleeping because I always worry about oversleeping because my phone doesn’t automatically adjust or set itself back an hour or forward. So, I make the adjustment to my devices earlier in the day, so it’s already set and I just go to sleep an hour earlier.
Yeah, it sucks to lose an hour of sleep but make up for it later that day if you can or throughout the week. For me there are benefits to the springing forward. Look, I might not love summer, it is one of the worst seasons for me because I don’t like heat. However, I love the sunlight that comes with that extra hour. Yes, I hate that it was already getting light at like 6 a.m., and now it has been pushed back to a little after 7 a.m. again.
The flipside is the bonus perk; the extra amount of sunlight later in the day. Instead of it getting dark shortly after 6:30 p.m., it is getting dark close to 8 p.m. and in the coming weeks, the amount of light in the morning and night will just get longer. This is good for the kiddos going to school and it’s good for the people who work late. I mean nothing sucks more than you leaving for work in complete darkness and getting home in complete darkness.
Yes, there has been research pointing out that losing that hour of sleep and pushing the clock back has a major impact on our Circadian Rhythm, which tells us when to get up and when to go to sleep. This might sound crazy, but I have never used an alarm clock for work. My body just knows when to get up and rarely have I overslept or had a situation where I wasn’t able to get up in a decent time to prepare for work. Call it a gift, some might call it a curse.
However, I don’t want a situation where we get rid of Daylight Saving Time. It has been a tradition all my life, so to have a situation where we are NOT springing forward or bouncing back would feel odd to me. I totally understand the importance in the fall because you don’t want kids heading to school in complete darkness. There are kids who have to walk to school and I see that as a massive safety issue. It would be getting light at 9 a.m. if we didn’t set our clocks back.
If we didn’t spring forward, you’re talking about a sunrise at like 4:30 in the morning in the summer. That is absolutely crazy. I am sorry, that would be brutal because you would just be thrown off. I’m a big proponent if something ain’t broke why are we trying to fix it? America, would you like to chime in?
