Now that daylight saving time is over and it gets dark at 5 p.m. every day, I have to say I don’t like daylight saving time.
I know why it was created, which was to get more use out of daylight in general, but I’m not a big sunlight person to begin with. I like having my curtains shut and lamps on, like the true home-body I am.
But my main complaints are the disruption of my sleep schedule, and the disruption of my dog schedule.
According to a 20-year study published in Current Biology, it was found that in mid-March, when daylight saving time starts, there is a 6% increase in fatal-accident risk in the U.S. due to drowsy drivers. So I know I’m not the only person who struggles to ‘spring forward’.
People generally think that falling back an hour is easier, but I don’t think it is. I wake up too early now, somewhere around 4 a.m., and can’t fall back asleep until around 6 a.m., only to be woken at 7:30 a.m. if I’m lucky.
If I’m not lucky, one of my dogs decided that it’s time to eat because they have no concept of daylight saving time, so to them it feels like I’m feeding them an hour late.
Sometimes Cosmo just jumps out of bed and paces around the room, trying to headbutt the door very gently until I give up on sleep and open it, at which point he runs right for the kitchen. He also has a habit of staring at you so intensely that it wakes you up. Our regular dog-sitter has said the same thing happens when he watches the dogs and that it’s unsettling.
Or Wanda starts whining. I know most of you have heard a dog whine, but I can’t describe to you the level of irritating this dog’s whine is. I love her so much, but it sounds like nails on a chalkboard. There’s no sleeping through that. So we get up, let her outside, and she comes right back in to ask for breakfast. You’d think I never feed them, even though Wanda gets three cups of food a day, and Cosmo gets four.
The only problem I see with getting rid of daylight saving time is how early it would get dark year-round. It wouldn’t be 5 p.m. in the summer, but it would still be earlier, and I don’t see great while driving at night. I can do it, but all headlights look like brights to me and streetlights aren’t nearly as common as they should be to help light the way.
Just this morning, as I write this, Wanda woke us up every two hours. Stay posted to see if I get a full night’s sleep before March when we have to start this thing all over again.
Why does daylight need saving? It’s not a finite resource, and I’m not a superhero. I’m just a regular lady with dogs who run her life and that can’t see in the dark. My superpower is operating on very little sleep.