Daylight Saving Time

[pokerfan]

Whether or not DST saves energy is the least of the reasons why it’s a bad idea. Much more important are the health effects of sudden, hour-long shifts on our bodies and minds. Chronobiologists who study circadian rhythms know that for several days after the spring-forward clock resetting – and especially that first Monday – traffic accidents increase, workplace injuries go up and, perhaps most telling, incidences of heart attacks rise sharply. Cases of depression also go up. As the faint light of dawn starts preparing our bodies for waking up (mainly through the rise of cortisol secretion), our various organs, including the heart, also start preparing for increased function. If the alarm clock suddenly rings an hour earlier than usual, a weak heart can suffer an infarct.

The reason for negative health effects of DST is that, in essence, the entire world is jet-lagged for a few days. Unlike some animals, like honeybees and reindeer, humans have a very robust circadian clock system that resists abrupt shifts.

Every cell in our bodies contains a biological clock which coordinates the events in those cells—for example, when gene transcription turns on and off, or when specific proteins are made. When we are exposed to a light-dark cycle that is different from what we experienced the previous days, some types of cells synchronize to the new environmental cycle faster than the others. Cells in our eyes, for example, may adjust in about a day, while cells in our brains take a couple of days. Cells in the digestive system and liver may take weeks. So, for weeks after the DST clock change, our bodies are like a clock shop in which each timepiece cuckoos at a different time of day—a cacophony of confusing signals.

More: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/a-blog-around-the-clock/2013/03/07/lets-not-spring-forward

[CBGLuthier]

1. I have been saying this for years

Is it a coincidence that one of the times we switch is a few weeks before our national elections?

[pokerfan]

3. Get everyone jet-lagged

and send them to the polls?

[KittyWampus]

4. And Halloween is also part of the plot too. Get kids all hopped up on sugar so the parents are so

frazzled they can't think clearly.

[KittyWampus]

2. My opinion0 it makes more sense to stop changing clocks in the autumn > giving us more daylight.

Most people I know in real life hate having so little day light hours in the winter.

[pokerfan]

5. six of one, half a dozen of the other

Go to work/school in the dark or come home in dark?

[Jamastiene]

6. I still despise DST.

We are not counting time right. If we were, we would not "gain" an entire extra day every 4 years, need to change clocks twice a year, and have to beat it to fit and paint it to match just to keep time. The Earth is not exactly round, does not orbit the sun in a circular pattern, and tilts on its axis (and that changes ever so often too) as it turns. Yet, we keep time in a perfectly circular pattern. No damn wonder we have to beat it to fit and paint it to match to keep time. If we truly wanted to "save daylight" we would set up all our holidays in the damn spring and summer when it is a thousand degrees outside and sunny most of the hours of the day. That should satisfy all the people who buy into that stupid "all humans are and/or must be diurnal and love thousand degree weather" philosophy.

Daylight is fucking overrated...says this night owl who got her sleeping pattern interrupted today, due to the outright idiocy, shitty attitude, and laziness of the local mass transit operators, and is up way way way past her bedtime. *grumble grumble grumble*

[zappaman]

8. +100!

I agree with your post 100%!

[City Lights]

18. I despise it, too!

Worst idea ever.

[HereSince1628]

7. Time is a construct for people who need to coordinate meetings with others.

As you become more and more isolated from others (common with age) and have no time clock to punch, life takes on its own rhythm. DST is something that happens to others. Time becomes the thing that manages cooking and maybe duration of exercising and carping about how there is NOTHING WORTH WATCHING on the television.

[pokerfan]

24. Yes!

The entire point of coordinated time is that everyone works from the same clock. With different countries and states going on/off DST on different dates--or ignoring it altogether--it's a major PITA.

[Rider3]

9. I like the longer days

You lose one hour of sleep. Big deal.

[The2ndWheel]

10. Just get rid of the clocks

Calendars can go too while we're at it.

[chillfactor]

11. I LOVE daylight savings time....

the longer days in daylight is most welcome.....I wish it was in effect year-round....

[abelenkpe]

20. +1000 :) nt

[RC]

22. You like kids going to school in the Winter, 2 hours before sun rise?

Having to go to bed while the sun is still shining in the Summer, because of when you have to get up in the morning?

They tried DST year around. It didn't work.

[RedstDem]

12. daylight savings

sucks.....

[FirstLight]

13. great read, thanks!

I for one agree with the idea we should run on Biological Time, much like our ancestors. When I was little, my dad bought some land in the country, and we'd visit every weekend...There was no electricity for a few years, and our lifestyle was in synch with the sun whenever we were there. We would easily be going to bed by 9pm because after a few hours in candlelight, you were tired. I miss that, personally...i think my kids would do well to experience that.

[One_Life_To_Give]

14. I'll settle for AST

Atlantic Standard Time( which by coincidence is the same as EDT)

[BanzaiBonnie]

15. Just another attempt by the overlords...

to throw us off, make us weaker, and less likely to fight back.

[Gregorian]

16. I never change my clock. It's great. I get an hour on the world for half a year.

[RC]

23. I never change my clocks either.

Not my watch. Not my computers. Not my microwave. Not even my Atomic Clock. Not my cameras either. All stay on Central Standard Time.
I have a friend in Hawaii. The do not observed DST. So what was a 4 hour time difference, becomes a 5 hour time difference. They would be getting home from work when I was wanting to go to bed during DST.

[RebelOne]

25. I never have to change my clocks or computer.

They do it automatically.

[RC]

31. My clocks keep the correct time year around, because they ignore DST the year around.

The do not switch time zones because of some ill conceived idea of saving candles

[trackfan]

17. DST is pure folly.

I reprise this old post of mine, oh, about twice a year:

People on the Left and Right will complain endlessly about how much they hate big government. Yet virtually 100% of the population will willingly acquiesce to having the government tell them it is noon when it is really an hour before noon. If you live anywhere in the vicinity of a rooster (that's a cock for you Brits - we're too babyish for that word in America), you know what folly DST is.

[pokerfan]

34. Exactly

Solar noon is the moment when the Sun transits the celestial meridian – roughly the time when it is highest above the horizon on that day. This is also the origin of the terms ante meridiem and post meridiem.

Noon should be the time when the sun is the highest in the sky and the shadows are the shortest, give or take thirty minutes depending upon how closely one is centered within one's time zone.

[abelenkpe]

19. We should never fall back

Daylight is important. It eases depression.
There are fewer suicides. And fewer pedestrians are hit by vehicles. Never fall back.

O and banish winter too. It sucks.

[pinboy3niner]

21. You think THAT'S bad?

Thanks to HarveyDarkey for alerting us to this:


http://www.democraticunderground.com/1018324494

[pokerfan]

35. Zero Dark Twenty-Eight Hundred?

[pokerfan]

38. Another funny: DST contributes to global warming!

http://www.snopes.com/humor/letters/daylight.asp

[pinboy3niner]

42. Ha! Connie is as sharp as a Ginsu knife--but he should have blamed Obama. :)

Nice message on his answering machine.

[RedSpartan]

26. To quote an episode of Duck Tales...

Me no need tickum-tockum. When light, me wake. When dark, me sleep.

[MaineLinePhilly]

27. Ugh!!! ALREADY?!!!

It takes me a minute to adjust to this DST change. I'm gonna be late to work for about 3 weeks.

[Tikki]

28. I love the Spring Forward...

Not so much the Fall Back...

But aren't the switches about helping out some farmers and ranchers?


Tikki

[pokerfan]

36. Farmers and ranchers work according to the sun

If anything, it DST was a PITA for my father because it meant that the co-op closed an hour earlier. Animals don't know about DST either. They get used to being fed/milked according the sun. Dairy cows in particular have a hard time adjusting to the one hour shift in milking schedule and it's often reflected in their production.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Daylight-saving-not-good-for-cows-3225026.php

[Dawson Leery]

29. DST should be the standard time.

Many prefer the extra hour of light in later in the day.

[snooper2]

30. This looks series...

LOL, somebody wrote that, then put it on the Intertubes for others...

[Lionessa]

32. We'd be a pretty friggin' weak species if the one hour change causes much

biological damage. Ridiculous.

That said, I'd like to stay on DT all the time, as it fits my lifestyle better than ST.

[boston bean]

33. I like it. I like the daylight at the end of the day.

I know it's only a matter of perception, but I'm on time schedule darnit and those extra hours after work that are light, make me feel a bit better.

[Scuba]

37. Not to mention the extra hour of sunlight just adds to global warming.

Seriously, I loved it when I was working - more daylight after work. Now I'm retired, and on my own schedule, it's meaningless.

[pokerfan]

39. Just beat you

See #36.

[Mnemosyne]

40. An old farmer I knew used to call it "lunatic time" and never switched her clocks. nt

[Blue_In_AK]

41. DST is ridiculous in Alaska

where there's constant daylight anyway in the summertime.