Friday, November 9, 2012

RRT-Daylight Savings Time

Yes, Yes, I know it's Friday but I figured that since it's Daylight Savings Time (DST) and we had to push our clocks forward an hour, than I could (for a day) push this post forward. Honestly, I planned to make this post yesterday, but time got in the way and with NaNoWriMo, I just didn't have the chance.

Any who, In the spirit of DST, I just want to say, I HATE IT!!!! That whole "spring forward, fall back" thing may be a good idea in theory, but in real life it's not all it's cracked up to be.

Let's start with the spring. Sometime (I'm never even sure when) in the spring, we must all diligently go to our clocks at 2am and turn them 1 hour forward. Therefore, we lose an hour. That includes an hour of sleep, which means instead of waking up at the normal time, say 6am, now that the clocks changed, you're now waking up at something more like 5am. It really puts a strain on the good moods come Monday morning. Let's not even talk about the fact that every one almost always forgets that they're supposed to change their clocks so they wake up thinking they're on time and then realize they're an hour late.

Then comes the Fall. Everyone seems so excited when the Fall comes because instead of losing an hour, they gain an hour. At 2am you will turn the clock back to 1am, and now you get an extra hour of sleep. Sounds pretty awesome right? Well, it isn't. Look at it like this. You're laying in the bed, and your alarm clock goes off (people barely forget to turn the clocks back, we like our extra sleep and will set reminders to remember set our clock back before bed). You should be pretty rested, since you got that nice extra hour, but your body is already used to waking up at a certain time unless it's a weekend. So now that you've gotten the extra hour, your body thinks, "Hey, Sherre must not be going to work today, let me just make her feel the need to sleep in like she does on the weekends." Then, before you know it, you've snoozed your alarm a few hundred times and you're late for work. Then comes the night time, when you get tired at 9pm and can't keep your eyes open because your body thinks it's 10 and almost time for bed.

Can you see now why I think Daylight savings time sucks. It seems purposely put there to mess with my body clock. Furthermore, the fact that it makes me want to sleep so early messes with my ability to write for NaNoWriMo well into the night like I planned. I hate DST, and I think it should be done away with.

What are your thoughts? Does it annoy you as much as it does me?

3 comments:

Sue Bursztynski said...

Just started DST here, last month, and while I agree about losing that hour, we do this on the weekend and I, personally, reset the clock before bedtime. It's worth it for the fact that I get to see my home in daylight! :-) Also, I can take a stroll on the beach without worrying that darkness will overtake me.

I haven't ever tried NaNoWriMo, so I guess I have to agree that DST was specifically set up to interfere with your writing and your body clock. ;-)

Lan said...

I agree with you 100%. I'm sure that it has a solid base scientifically or whatever but for us mere mortals it's just a pain in the butt. Twice a year our bodies go all out of whack. If theyre going to force a time change on us they should at least give us a public holiday so we can get used to it!

Anonymous said...

First I want to say that Lan, I couldn’t agree more! I think a national holiday that would allow all of us to adjust to which ever change (falling back or springing forward) should be seriously considered (though it will never happen LOL). But Sherre, you're not alone I don't quite get it at all either, but fortunately for myself, I don't really mind it as much; even though I do want to say my condolences truly go out to your biological clock which is under assault.

I do feel for you however, because It seems that you love sleep just as much as I do. It sadly a hate relationship also, because when that bed calls, you gotta answer no matter what you’ll doing…even Nanowrimo. More power to you as well, I’ll be pulling for finishing your 50K. But as an art major who had to put in ridiculous, and I do mean ridiculous, amounts of time in the studio to make the best piece of work I could; I am very accustom to even more ridiculous sleep patterns. I practically practiced DST every week! LOL, but that’s still not to say sometimes it does definitely catch up to you. Some good advice if you want to get some amazingly deep sleep one Saturday or say even Sunday or whenever you have a day off; get deep color drapes in your bed room that let in absolutely no light… you won’t just sleep, you will hibernate (haha) and feel great very rested when you wake up!

-YSA

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