Daylight Savings: Stay or Go?

 

Must Be Daylight Savings Time, Again

This week was different from the previous in one big way, I was very tired. Daylight savings time is the likely culprit. If it’s affected me like this in previous years I don’t remember. I wouldn’t have assumed my lethargy was related to the yearly spring ahead campaign on my own. Someone at work mentioned that they weren’t sleeping well this week because the time change was “killing them”. I thought about that. My week was pretty rough too. I came home completely drained on Tuesday after work. Wednesday, the sluggish bug bit me again. Thursday, I jogged with my marathon group but didn’t have enough energy to go as far. Friday felt a little more regular, maybe I’m over it.

An hour of lost sleep shouldn’t matter that much but apparently it does. Nothing else was different. The weather has been in the low 60s. For March that’s incredible. I can’t blame it for causing some drowsy spell every afternoon. Daylight Savings makes sense because nothing else does. It’s likely that I notice it more now that I’ve been studying my personal training material in the evening. To study anything you need to really focus. The material isn’t technical, but most of the terms and concepts are new. When I’m sleepy I read the same sentence multiple times or let my mind wander. During review it takes me 3 or 4 times to understand what I just read. Normally I can power through. This week was nearly a waste where homework is concerned.

Like most things in America, no one agrees on what the best system is. Before 1966 there were a hodgepodge of rules on DST. No national legislation existed. Even as late as 1972, a few states still didn’t observe it. Arizona is still the lone holdout. That’s on brand for them anyway. They’re the proverbial last old coot refusing to sell their shack along the proposed railway line. Everyone else made a deal and moved on. AZ 'ain't budgin'. Some states have already passed legislation making DST a permanent feature going forward. Florida is in this camp. The problem is they can’t put it into effect until Congress amends the current law, which is the one requiring us to change the time twice per year.

Last Sunday, a handful of us went outside to play pickleball. Normally we play in the gym. As it turns out, pickleball is quite popular in our corner of the city. It’s a trend all over the country, I’m late to the party. New people join the ranks every week pushing court wait times to 20 minutes and longer. But with the later sun we can finally use the outdoor courts again. Naturally the talk turned to daylight savings, everyone had an opinion. Most like DST despite the hangover like week or so where you feel like a zombie after work. One woman preferred the standard time. The reason, the sun is up early just before we spring the clocks ahead. They liked the early sun, the rest of us prefer it late.

That’s basically the way it shakes out nationally too. Most favor keeping DST as the permanent solution and not switching back to standard, but only 31%. The next 21% want to keep changing the clocks the way we do. Only 19% want to keep the standard time as permanent and the rest, 28%, are basically undecided. Those numbers aren’t likely to make a dent where Congress is concerned. We’ll probably be stuck with the current system for a while. My preference would be to keep DST all the time and not have to worry about changing the clocks anymore. But it’s not one of those things that raises my blood pressure. I’m used to the current way of doing things and I’ll be fine with it going forward.

My big gripe would be the axial tilt of the earth. As long as the earth tilts away from the sun we’ll have winter. Winter, also known as more darkness, isn’t changing anytime soon. I'll always want more sunshine, even when I can't have it. Since God put the earth in it’s orbit we won’t be changing that either. Seasons come and go. There is a time for everything after all. Whether you like it or not, we all seem to manage. We lose sleep for a while and then we adjust.