We’re now on Daylight Savings Time–or “fast time” as my grandmother calls it (since that first day just flies by!). Bleh. My circadian clock is firmly meshed in the requisite 24-hour cycle. Yesterday, someone robbed me of an hour (hmmm, I think that was an hour of writing time!).
Tips for dealing with the lag created by the time change include setting your clock ahead in 15 minute increments for four days prior to the change. I have a hard enough time keeping up with my schedule without changing a standing 10 a.m. appointment to 10:15, then 10:30 . . . Another tip is to go to bed an hour early the night before. Done. But it’s DARK when I get up now, so I’m not fooling anybody. I’m just well rested AND out-of-sync.
I know, soon enough I’ll be adjusted and will enjoy more time each evening for dog walking, gardening, hiking or just sitting on the porch. But I still don’t like the time change. My dream is to one day live like my great-grandma Jane. She got up when it was light and went to bed when it was dark, letting her body tell her what was needed.
Our bodies are smart. Waaaay smarter than the guy who came up with Daylight Savings Time.
Meet Sarah
Your GreatGrandma Jane lived on “God’s Time” and expected all of the family to adjust to her schedule. Cute the first time around, but not so cute later as we visited her, invited her to dinner or to stay with us for a week!
It’s great material for one of my books, but I can see how that would get old!
I remember as a child in Indiana when the entire state (except for Lake County because of its proximity to Chicago) was placed on daylight savings time year ’round. I thought that was great. I also recognized at that early age how far people will go with ludicrous arguments against something they don’t want to be bothered with. I remember what would now be called “The Farm Lobby” (but was in reality just a bunch of disgruntled farmers resistant to change of any kind) argued against it claiming it would confuse the milk cows. Silly farmers. Even as a non-farm kid, I knew that cows didn’t know how to tell time, their days and nights were governed by daylight and the lack thereof (you know, what we call night and day). They wouldn’t be confused at all. Even cows are smarter than that. When the sun came up, they knew it was time to amble over to the barn and enter their stalls to eat (probably because they were out of cud) and be milked. It was the farmers who didn’t want to have to bother to moderate their thinking, their alarm clocks, OR their circadian clocks (if they had any at all). They would still have to get up at the same time each morning no matter what the clock said simply because the cows knew what time it really was. Smart cows. Silly farmers.
Maybe we should just switch to “cow time” 365 days a year!