Spring Ahead

Tomorrow we lose an hour. Daylight Savings Time. What is it really saving? Not our sleep. Not our health. Statistically, there are more heart attacks, strokes, and car accidents after Daylight Savings Time. I know there was once a legitimate reason for creating this day. But I’m not sure if it is even relevant anymore.

Spring ahead. Lose an hour of sleep. Lose sanity trying to motivate myself and my students, whose parents let them stay up late rather than try to accommodate the time change (I don’t think most adolescent kids have bedtimes anymore anyway).

For the next week I will continually think about the lost hour. The alarm will ring at 5:30 a.m. Monday morning and as I look at the clock I will think to myself, “It is really 4:30 a.m. Ugh.” I will think about it again when my stomach starts growling at what had been, lunchtime. Later that evening, as I prepare to call it a night, I will try to push myself to go to bed a little earlier to bridge the time gap and make getting up Tuesday morning a little easier. I’m not sure I can trick my brain into doing so, but I plan on trying.

Eventually, my body will adjust to the change. I won’t think about the time change again until the fall when , once again, the time is adjusted. Fall behind. Gain an hour. Now THAT I can live with, though I wonder if any health studies have been done about that.