Sleep Blog

Daylight saving time begins earlier starting this year

When the U.S. Congress decided to change the start of Daylight Saving Time (DST) in August 2005, that brought a lot of headaches to the world, including for computer manufacturers. No, Microsoft isn’t alone in issuing patches to change the date. There’s discussion about a fix for the Mac OS X (Tiger), and finally, discussion on Oracle’s site about the issue for the various ‘Nix flavors.

The biggest headache, though, will be for some unlucky people who have calendars, or, worse yet, bought calendars that were printed in bulk two or three years ago, shipped to a warehouse, and then distributed last year. Yes, there are some people who have calendars that show the old date for daylight saving time to begin. The real date this year for moving clocks ahead one hour ahead is March 11.

How the new daylight saving time changes came to be

That change, part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, was signed into law by President George W. Bush on August 8, 2005, and causes Daylight Savings Time to begin three weeks earlier than before. It now begins on the second Sunday in March.

Be happy that a modified version of DST was approved. Under the original version of the bill, two full months would have been added to the DST scheme. One month would have been added on the Spring side of the change, and the other, obviously, on the Fall side of the calendar.

Some U.S. senators argued that farmers complained about the two month extension of DST, saying that drastic of a change could possibly affect livestock in negative ways. Farmers weren’t alone in the complaint department. Airline officials argued that scheduling international flights could also become a nightmare.

To deal with many issues and arguments presented, lawmakers hammered out an agreement that DST would start on the second Sunday in March and end the first Sunday in November of each year.

Now that you understand all of that, here’s the tricky part. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 does not alter the rights of states or territories to opt to not observe DST. That means a state in the “DST zone” may not actually change its time.

Two books on the subject that you may be interested in reading are:

• Seize the Daylight
• Spring Forward

History of Daylight Saving Time

For those not up on history, it was Ben Franklin, back in 1784, who first conceived the idea of changing the time on clocks

At the time, Franklin was an American delegate to France, and had just witnesses a demonstration of the then newly-invented oil lamp. After giving due consideration to the lamp, he conceived a way to help people the oil they would use oil lamps and candles.

Since Franklin lived in a world before computers, PDAs, and typewriters, all his notes were penned using a quill, parchment, bottled ink, sand, and a blotting cloth. He penned his now famous essay, Turkey versus Eagle, McCauley is my Beagle. It was subsequently published in the Journal de Paris, where it was published on April 26, 1784

Debate over his essay — then and now — have opponents on both sides of the fence. Some argue he wrote the essay as a joke, yet others argue he conceived a way for workers to have more light, warm, and productive hours. On the flip side, as AroundCentralFlorida.com notes, Parisians did not warm up to the idea, since they enjoyed sleeping until noon.

The British, in 1916, viewed the economical benefits of having longer days, so, in April of that year hey moved their clocks forward in April, recognizing the start of summer on the third Saturday of April. Could it have been a miser-like approach, perhaps an idea borrowed from the “Ebenezer Scrooge handbook on getting the most from each pence”? The energy saving benefits were later recognized during World War II, when British clocks were set two hours ahead.

Tips to ready your sleep-cycle for daylight saving time

One problem that crops up each year is people have trouble adjusting their sleep habits when the clocks are psuhed an hour ahead. Why shouldn’t your body have issues? Actually, it’s something called the circadian cycle that has control of our sleep habits.

To help you prepare your sleep-cycle, as well as those of children, check out Awake In America’s site for tips about readying your circadian rhythms for Daylight Saving Time.

An appropriate ending for this entry from good ol’ Ben Franklin seems to be:

He that can take rest is greater than he that can take cities.

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