If you’ve been enjoying a regular sleep cycle recently, there is bad news on the horizon.
But by the same token, if you enjoy having time after work to do outdoor activities, your probably looking forward to what’s coming next.
Daylight saving times will take effect in the wee hours of Sunday morning and usher in the twice-yearly ritual of resetting all of our analog clocks, watches, and other timing apparatuses (don’t forget the microwave).
The concept of daylight savings time was born out of hard times during World War I. Germany was the first country to employ daylight savings time in 1916 in an effort to save fuel. Much of the rest of the world picked up the practice between 1917-1920, including the United States in 1918. Each year daylight savings time begins at 2 p.m. on the second Sunday of March, a time that was selected because it didn’t interfere with train schedules in major metropolitan areas.
In recent years there has been some chatter about the necessity and the actual usefulness of daylight savings time, and some states have pushed for a potential repeal of the practice.
Indiana, which has a large portion of its state in the eastern time zone, but a dozen counties in the central time zone, has always been salty about changing the clocks – even going as far in the 1990s as to allow counties to make the decision for themselves before eventually taking back state control of the clocks. Arizona is also an anti-daylight savings time stalwart.
While every March brings grumblings about “losing an hour” of sleep, there doesn’t appear to be enough pushback nationally to end daylight savings time in the near future.
If you are one of the few folks who dislikes the time change enough to take action, there is always Hawaii. The island state is the only place in the country that does not currently observe daylight savings time due to its tropical location and consistent daylight hours.
So, get to bed a little bit early on Saturday night, and enjoy the extra hour of daylight in the afternoon on Sunday. Daylight savings time means summer is right around the corner.