Regular or daylight saving?

It felt like I went to bed too late Sunday and woke up too early Monday.

The rest of the week hasn’t been much better. I’m just a little off-kilter.

I’ll chalk up some of my crankiness to the temperature whiplash in Ohio. In the teens with fairly heavy snowfall on Saturday to warm enough for short sleeves and shorts by Tuesday. And some I’ll blame on my wife, who came back late from a family trip early Monday and woke me up, disrupting my sleep cycle even more.

But most of this week’s maladjustment, I’m convinced, comes from moving the clocks ahead one hour to resume daylight saving time.

Usually, I don’t complain. After all, the advance in time is a harbinger of winter’s end and warmer weather, the promise of long summer nights sipping fresh lemonade on the porch and chasing lightning bugs in the backyard (at least in places where light pollution and habitat destruction haven’t already wiped them out).


By the same token, the resumption of standard time in the fall (Nov. 6 this year – maybe) feels like a small death. With the falling back of the clocks, it’s dark in the morning when most of us go to work and dark at night when we come home.

This year, however, the feds may intervene to save us.

Nestled amid horrifying news out of Ukraine came a rare display of bipartisanship: The Senate unanimously passed legislation that would keep Americans in daylight saving time forever. Or at least until somebody else decides it’s not a good idea.


The bill has a great deal of support from the business world, which has long touted the benefits on customer and employee safety, to say nothing of sales. More light in the evening may result in fewer traffic accidents and crime reduction. Some mental-health advocates say that not falling back to standard time in November could lessen the incidence of seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

So the bill is now off to the House. If it passes there, it needs only the president’s signature to become law.

But not so fast, says the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM). An October 2020 report, referenced in a recent New York Times article on the possible permanence of daylight saving time, raises the caution flags.

The academy admits the effects of year-round daylight saving time “have not been well studied,” but notes that DST is less attuned to the body’s natural circadian rhythms. This could lead to an increased risk of heart disease and something the academy terms “social jet lag.” This last phenomenon could increase obesity and depression, among other health concerns.

So while the AASM’s conclusions agree with the Senate (and with most Americans) that the twice-yearly time change is disruptive, the academy recommends America make standard time permanent, not daylight saving time.

If the House agrees with the sleep doctors, we could see our elected officials battling over the concept of time itself, which sounds like the plot of a Marvel movie. Where are the Avengers when we really need them?

It’s a debate worth having, even if most people, on first blush anyway, would champion the cause of daylight saving time. After all, we have already thrown our bodies’ circadian rhythms out of joint with electricity (radical!) and ambient light from televisions and smartphones, glowing throughout the night while we toss and turn.

For me, I’m less concerned with whether Congress ultimately selects daylight saving or standard time, just that we stop springing ahead and falling back like wristwatch-wearing jack-in-the-boxes twice a year.

Maybe once lawmakers have resolved Discrepancies with All of Time (capital letters look better on the marquee), they can move on to harder stuff, like making it illegal for a spouse to put an empty Pop-Tarts box back in the cupboard.

Like I said, I’m a little cranky.

Reach Chris at chris.schillig@yahoo.com. On Twitter: @cschillig