& {sometimes} WHY

When I woke this past Sunday morning the clock read 9:30 a.m., but I knew it was really 8:30 a.m., since overnight the world returned to the sanity of standard time. We fell back in the fall, as the saying goes.

And it only got better as the day wore on.

Sunday night, darkness rolled in around dinnertime. Hubs and I streamed Masterpiece Mysteries on PBS and didn’t even have to close the window blinds to see the television. By 10 p.m. we were nodding off. I fell asleep as soon as I switched on the CPAP and my head hit the pillow. I woke at 6:30 a.m. Monday, refreshed, patting myself on the back for getting an early start.

I haven’t felt so good since March 9–the day before DST took effect this year.

I still remember how disoriented I was Monday, March 11, and how I didn’t exercise for several weeks because I couldn’t maintain my schedule of out of bed at 6 a.m. to get to the gym by 7. I finally settled for going later but spent the entire summer lying awake at night and sleeping in too long in the morning to compensate. I felt like I lost a half a day every day from March 10 through Nov. 2.

Does anyone out there agree with me?

I HATE daylight savings time.

I haven’t always felt that way, though. Indiana used to be on central time in most of the state and did not observe daylight savings time from 1970 to 2006. I deplored the lack of DST then because it put us at odds with what the rest of the country was doing.

I laughed so much at this clip from the West Wing TV series when the cast gets hung up on the campaign trail by this Hoosier time warp (click on link if video doesn’t load):

A big part of this episode poked fun at Indiana for being a backward farm state, and our bid to buck DST was more evidence. However, if you watch the full episode (Season 4, episode 1: 20 Hours in America), the time snafu helps the campaigners discover Indiana isn’t as out of step as they thought. Many, many of our farmers have ag degrees, and even our experiment with ditching DST showed forward-thinking.

The problem with this Hoosier experiment, however, was that it put us out of sync with what the rest of the country was doing, wrong though they were. And it made time ZONE differences even more confusing, though my old-lady brain gets too muddled trying to remember specifics. But, trust me, it was definitely a clusterf*ck because no one could remember who was on first in what month.

So I was relieved when Indiana finally decided to observe DST once again. Not so glad, though, we chose eastern over central time in most parts of the state, since we are more in tune business-wise with neighbors Illinois and Kentucky than with Ohio and Michigan.

My joy was short-lived anyway

I started hating DST soon after its return, and the central vs. eastern zone thing pales in comparison because each year it gets harder and harder for my internal clock to adjust to that one hour spring forward.

Experts say that’s true for everyone, everywhere. Moving the clocks forward in the spring results in going to sleep and waking up before our bodies are naturally ready because it puts us out of sync with the sun.

This misalignment lasts for the duration of DST and the amount of sleep we lose may adversely affect our health. Scientific evidence links DST with increases in heart attack, stroke, mood disturbance, hospital admissions, production of inflammatory stress-response markers, and even fatal traffic accidents!!!

My main gripe is hubs and I can’t sit out on the patio, sip wine and gaze at the stars during DST because we don’t want to stay up late enough for them to be visible. And that’s definitely a mood disturbance of mega proportion.

What’s worse is the longer SPAN of DST

When I was a kid, we didn’t “spring forward” until late April, and we “fell back” in late October. Now it’s early March and early November. Before you know it, we’ll be on DST all year-round, which is what some advocate.

Who are those advocates? Let’s string ’em up! They’re against nature AND science.

Surveys from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) have found that about  about 63% of Americans would prefer to eliminate DST, and I’m one of them. Get rid of DST completely.

Governing bodies make these decisions, of course: state legislatures, congress, all of whom we elect. So why don’t they ask us first? Majority still rules, right? How about a referendum?

Let’s not spring forward OR fall back. Let’s just have one less thing to worry about. No more changing all the clocks twice a year or being late or early for appointments because we got mixed up. And let’s do it worldwide–or at least nationwide.

Because no matter what, you can’t fool Mother Nature

There are still just 24 hours in each day. We never lose or gain anything other than the headaches. And the reality is that time itself is a human-construct imposed on nature, which is oblivious to our machinations.

Our best bet is just to follow the sun. At least it knows where it’s going, which is more than I can say for the politicians.

Which are you for–all DST, all EST, or half-and-half?

Please share in the comments WHICH and WHY. I promise, I won’t really string up those who disagree with me, LOL.