Comments on: Daylight Savings Time

By: Cindy Moore

Cindy Moore — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:01:14 +0000

“am I the only person in America who loves early DST”

NO!! I hate seeing the sun go down so early in the winter….and even if it’s an illusion, I feel better with the “longer” day.

You also mention leaving work?? I agree again….leaving work before 5PM in winter and seeing it already dark!!! Man I hate that!! I’m originally from the Boston area (Avon/Brockton on the so shore actually) and I can remember driving home in the dark….and I only worked until 4:30! I’m in NC now and no one believes me!!

Recently there was a “you know you’re from Boston” email going around….and one of the lines was “4:15pm and pitch black out means there’s just 3 more shopping days until Christmas”

By: psipsina

psipsina — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 14:18:06 +0000

It wasn’t that some people were upset that surprised me; there are morning people and non-morning people. It’s that I didn’t hear a single person saying, “Oh, good, it will still be light out when I leave work!” That’s what was surprising.

I’m not a morning person and never have been, even as a tiny child. I wouldn’t wake up at the crack of dawn if you put me in a room with glass walls. And I sit in a windowless office all day, so having daylight when I get out of work is a great thing. I can see that if you are a morning person, and if you have access to natural daylight all day, you might prefer to get your light early in the day.

But I don’t agree about one hour throwing us off so irreparably. The standard advice for jet lag is that you can expect your body to adjust one time zone (that is, one hour) every day, and this is exactly the same thing. This is a rule of thumb, and may differ from person to person, but surely by Friday we’ll all be adjusted?

I think adjusting over a several week period would be chaos! Asking people to do four or six times what they could do once seems unnecessarily complicated.

In Boston the latest it ever gets dark, even in the summer on daylight savings time, is about 8:30. Is that so very late?

By: Dinah Soar

Dinah Soar — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 02:51:23 +0000

I with you D, commenter #1…I hate it too…it wreaks havoc with my body clock…it’s natural to wake up with the sunlight and normal to wind down with the waning light and at dark go to sleep…this extended light in the evening just allows people to do more in the evening and get overstimulated…

If we must have the change, why can’t the hour be done in increments of say 15 minutes over a 4 week period, or 10 minutes over a 6 week period…it would be easier to adjust physically…or why can’t the whole hour move forward during the day…

Why can’t it just be left alone???!!!

By: Ron

Ron — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 21:10:36 +0000

I guess it really is true…”The only one who is happy about change is a wet baby!”

Ron, aka The Former Donut Junkie

By: James Nelson

James Nelson — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:45:27 +0000

I don’t care which time we adopt as long as we pick one one and stick with it, I don’t like the change.

By: D.

D. — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:36:30 +0000

I’m completely the opposite! I don’t like trying to wake up in the dark, see no need for it to be light late into the evening. If I have to turn on lights to see to get dressed, then how am I saving energy?! Actually, it’s really more the time change twice a year that irks me. If we are truly saving daylight, then just leave it that way all year long. Why keep changing it? It wreaks havoc with our circadian rhythms, and, for me, can take weeks to adapt to the change.

I really prefer having my daylight in the morning, and having a nice, dark evening for winding down my day. But, that’s just me, and I think I’m in the minority.