I have always thought the time change was ridiculous. And by the way... am I the only person who notices that it's completely backwards anyway? Why in the world do we spring forward and fall back?

If daylight turning to night peaks out mid-summer sometime and then naturally begins to fall back downward, then why do we add another hour to the curve? So for me in SoCal, it will peak at about 8:30pm in mid July. Then it will gradually move downward until it is getting dark around 6:00pm in October. Then we move it even another hour back so that it gets dark at 5:00pm. Then the same thing happens on the opposite end in March (like this last weekend). We were already advancing toward a later sun down, then we spring ahead and make it even later. Dark at 5pm in Winter. Dark at 830pm in Summer. What kind of time management is that?

Of all the arguments I've heard that support a daylight "energy savings" due to the differnce in temperature, I have still never heard a good sound reason why they do it in reverse like this. If we do insist on changing it, why not change it the other direction?

But I say we do away with it altogether! Let's let time stand still and allow the earth to do its thing.

I say we abolish it. It's not necessary anymore. :)

When I was in college I was in Indiana (the part that doesn't change) and they had to switch for the first time ever. They still haven't gotten used to it. So I don't think they'd mind getting rid of it either!

But since that's highly unlikely, I try to deal with it the same way I deal with regular time changes when switching time zones. And when we "Spring ahead" I try to exhaust myself so I can get right to bed at a "normal" time for the impending loss of an hour.

From Obesity Panacea:

Health hazards of daylight savings time: ‘springing forward’ to a heart attack.

A 2009 study in the New England Journal of Medicine clearly shows this effect. In the study the authors investigated the number of heart attacks in Sweden the week before and the week after the 1hr clock changes in both the spring and fall. As would be predicted, individuals had an approximately 5% greater risk of having a heart attack immediately after the ‘spring ahead’ clock change compared to the previous week.

The authors rightfully suggest that individuals at risk of cardiovascular complications would be better off changing their clocks more gradually (i.e. by 15 minutes, starting on the Friday before the change). Even more importantly, avoiding strenuous activity and stress right in the morning may also be a valid suggestion.

I also dislike the clocks changing. Unfortunately I am not organised enough to implement a gradual clock change.

I personally am a night owl, not good for paleo life, I know...but I prefer REGULAR time. THIS DST STINKS! I try really hard to get to bed not long after dark the first week so I can ease into it. But most years I just suffer the first week as I have never been a morning person.

I hear you.

I feel so hungover today, it's absurd.

On Saturday night, I decided I would simply ignore the clock -- I am human being, durn it, and shan't let any electronic device dictate my life! -- and went to bed at my usual time. For some reason, I didn't roll out of bed until 10 am, which was actually 11 o'clock. Good-bye morning, it was nice meeting you. Didn't get sleepy until about 1 o'clock in the morning, and when I woke at my usual time this morning, my head was pounding and I felt snippy.

Grr. Pass me my tea and don't talk to me. xP

So...uhm, I guess my advice is, don't do what I did. Clearly my master plan to ignore the time change backfired and now I feel rubbish.

My grandpa never changed his watch for DST. Of course, he had to adjust it in his head for dealing with the rest of the world, but I guess he figured he was smart enough to add 1.

If people want the actual rationale behind DST, it goes like this: In the summer, shifting the day an hour ahead cuts an hour off the time people will be using electric lights in the evening, yet the day is long enough that it'll already be light out in the morning when most people get up. So it's supposed to save electricity, and electric companies claim it saves from 1-3%. We don't just stay on DST all the time because, in the winter, the day is short enough that DST would only shift an hour of electric light usage from evening to morning, and make it even colder and darker in the morning when most people are getting up.

Most of that is probably beside the point in these days of 24-hour grocery stores, but now it's tradition. Farmers always hated DST and opposed it, but retailers liked it because it meant another hour in the evening for people to be out shopping, so guess who won?