Time for a Change?
There are two kinds of people in this country: those who love Daylight Saving Time, and those who don’t.
There’s a third group, I suppose: those who can’t decide, even though the reality of it has been around for nearly sixty years.
The U.S. tried it twice before, during World Wars I and II, in an attempt to minimize the use of artificial lighting and save fuel for the war effort. That exercise likely lay the seed for its permanent adoption by Congress in the Uniform Time Act of 1966.
And yet today, not all states have approved the legislation.
Both Hawaii and Arizona (except for the real estate owned by the Navajo Nation) remain on Standard Time year-round. Meanwhile, 20 states have passed laws or resolutions aiming to stop the time change. However, they cannot implement the change without approval from Congress.
The debate lingers on, like an all-day hangover.
Among those in the DST camp: Golfers. The sport’s aficionados are practically ecstatic when the clock rolls back. Earlier evening hours increase playing time on the links, and players tend to hang around the clubhouse longer in the evening, buying drinks and food. Caddies, country clubs, and public courses alike make more money.
So, good for golfers. Not so good for other businesses. It pretty much killed the drive-in movie business. Remember them?
Staying neutral? The nappers.
As a consolation prize to those who still need more sleep this week, there is National Napping Day, first declared in 1999 by a married couple who sought to promote the benefits of a daytime snooze. (No word on whether they napped together or apart.) It’s no coincidence that it falls on the heels of our mandated clock regression.
Nappers are apparently unfazed by the time change. It’s a fact that mid-afternoon naps have been an integral part of most cultures for centuries. In many countries, businesses still close for two afternoon hours, prime time for a little “afternoon delight,” which may or may not include a nap.
Nappers point to numerous studies that tout a 10-20 minute nap as the most effective way to combat midday fatigue. Improvements in alertness, productivity, and mood—along with decreased stress—have all been shown to improve with this type of snooze. There are even guidelines for how to nap productively. Some claim that a pre-Daylight Saving Time nap can avoid any post-time-change blur.
However…
On the other side of the debate are the grumblers, who offer a multitude of objections, such as:
Why try to mess with Time? Mother Nature brings us longer sunlight hours every Spring and Summer without all the fuss and bother of DST. Why force us to reset our non-digital devices in March, only to change them again every Autumn? And where’s the romance in an evening soirée that takes place mostly in daylight? It’s too confusing, and darn it, people hate taking their children to school in the dark!
Also, even though habitual nappers think they have the time-change-induced mind fog licked, napping can leave a person feeling groggy after waking, which makes it harder to get anything productive accomplished for the rest of the day. And it may lead to nighttime insomnia—possibly with regret over things you could have accomplished instead of sleeping.
Which side of DST are you on? For, against, or somewhere in the middle?
Gay Yellen’s award-winning writing career began in magazine journalism. She served as the co-writer/editor for the international thriller, Five Minutes to Midnight(Delacorte), a New York Times “New & Notable.” The success of that book led to her Samantha Newman Romantic Mystery Series.
