It’s time we admit it: We’re trapped in a toxic relationship with Daylight Saving Time.
There, I said it.
Every spring, Daylight Saving Time returns to our lives, promising this time will be different. Just as we have had all we can stand of the long, cold winter nights, it promises long, glowing evenings, and we fall for it every time. Never mind that it robs us of an hour of sleep and we’re left nursing a circadian hangover.
As summer turns to fall, the inevitable occurs – we break up again only to run begging Standard Time to take us back and grace us with some warm, early morning sunshine. However, after four months we’re bored and repeat the cycle.
Americans have been breaking up and getting back together with Daylight Saving Time for more than a century.
- 1918: We tried a quick fling during World War I to save fuel. It was short-lived. Angry farmers—tired of waking up in pitch darkness to milk cows that didn’t care about congressional clocks—demanded a break. Congress repealed it in 1919.
- 1942: World War II hit, and we panicked back into DST’s arms with year-round “War Time”. The moment the war ended in 1945, we broke up again, sparking two decades of chaotic, unregulated rebound relationships where towns set their own clocks.
- 1966: Exhausted by the chaos, we passed the Uniform Time Act to set official boundaries. It was supposed to bring stability, but we still couldn’t commit fully.
- 1974: During the energy crisis, we swore we were ready to commit forever to year-round DST. That lasted less than a year. Sending kids to school in pitch-black winter mornings broke our hearts, so we crawled back to Standard Time early.
- 2005: We extended DST by four extra weeks, essentially giving our toxic ex the keys to the apartment for eight months of the year.
The dysfunction is now at an all-time high. Half the country is pushing the “Sunshine Protection Act,” which would make Daylight Saving Time permanent. That would result in later sunsets, but that would also mean that the sun would not come up until after 8 a.m. We could experience 113 days of the year with a sunrise after 8 a.m., the latest being 8:45 a.m.
Meanwhile, health experts shout that standard time is better for our hearts and brains. States keep passing conditional laws that say “I’ll dump the clock-changing if you do it first!”
We all know this changing our clocks twice a year is absurd, yet when we wake up to sunshine on a cold winter morning or step outside to watch a summer sunset at 9 p.m., we think to ourselves, “You know, switching the clocks wasn’t so bad. Maybe this time will be different.”