To Inspire:

It has arrived. The annual Saturday night/Sunday morning when we “Spring Forward” and lose an hour of sleep. While one lost hour seems like it shouldn’t be problematic, most of us recognize that we’ll spend a few days adjusting to this new “time.”

This year, daylight saving time (DST) begins on Sunday, March 10 and ends on Sunday November 3. The official time change takes place at 2AM, planned that way as most people are already home and in bed by that time.

All my life I understood daylight saving to be something that originally started “for the farmers,” shifting more daylight to the evening to help with planting, harvesting, etc. Not true! Jokingly suggested by Benjamin Frankin in 1784, the idea of changing time picked up steam during World War I when Germany, England, and other countries sought ways to conserve energy. (The actual energy saving benefits of DST continue to be debated today.)

The United States temporarily implemented daylight saving – known then as “war time” – in 1918. Farmers at the time relied on morning light to get their crops to market and lobbied aggressively against the change. So, based on pushback from the farmers, it was repealed after World War I. It was reintroduced in 1942, during World Ward II and repealed again in 1945. Then, for a time, each state was allowed to set their own standard.

We went back to national standard time in 1966, with the Uniform Time Act, splitting the year into six months of standard time and six months of daylight saving.

There has been talk in the past few years about sticking with daylight saving time year-round. The U.S. tried this before. Year-round daylight saving time was signed into law by President Richard Nixon in January 1974. At that time, it was designed to maximize evening sunlight and help with the national gas crisis.

Most Americans – 79 percent – loved the idea at first, but those long, dark winter quickly turned people against the change. In October 1974, President Gerald Ford signed legislation that reversed permanent daylight saving time. While people loved those long summer days of 1974, the thought of another dark winter prompted the government to end the planned two-year experiment early.

And while there continues to be conflicting evidence of energy savings, the possibility of savings prompted Congress to extend daylight saving by a month in both 1986 and 2007.

Various medical groups say the spring shift to DST incurs an increased risk of cardiovascular events, mood disorders, and car crashes, presumably triggered by lost sleep. On the plus side, daylight saving time reduces robberies, which tend to happen in the dark.

Now, 50 years later, we are again talking about year-round daylight saving time. A 2021 poll showed most people in the U.S. want to avoid switching time, though there is no clear consensus behind which should be used.

Currently nineteen states – including Ohio – have enacted legislation or passed resolutions in favor of year-round daylight saving. And in March 2022 the U.S. Senate voted to pass the Sunshine Protection Act of 2021, but it has never been passed by the House of Representatives. It appears these time shifts will be with us for the foreseeable future.

So here we are, once again losing an hour to gain future long, sunny days. Have a wonderful weekend and don’t forget to set your clocks ahead before you go to bed on Saturday!

 

 

 

 

Written by Michelle O’Brien, Manager of Marketing & Communications

 

 

Sources: Solly, Meilan. What Happened the Last Time the U.S. Tried to Make Daylight Saving Time Permanent? Smithsonian. Friedman, Megan. 10 Things You Didn’t Know About Daylight Saving Time. Country Living.