A possible solution to the problem of time-shifting and losing sleep every six months with the coming and going of Daylight Savings Time.

by James K. Sayre

(Note: this maneuver is best done in the autumn at the "end" of Daylight Savings Time in late October.)

When the dreaded semi-annual switchover from daylight savings time back to standard time occurs on a Sunday late in October, take no action at all. This time I just instinctively refused to change my clocks and watches at all. Don't touch any of your personal clocks. Happily ignore all of the government busybody admonitions on the TV and in the papers.

Go to bed at the same time and get up at the same time as before the "time change." Your VCRs and computers will probably take care of them selves. If you are in California, when everyone else has messed with their sleep pattern in the reversion to standard time, you will be fine. You will be living on Mountain Standard Time as it were, as in Arizona and Colorado. Basically, you will be getting up one hour earlier (in terms of standard time) and going to bed one hour earlier (in terms of standard time). You will be sacrificing some late night TV, but the news shows are mostly corporate propaganda anyway. You will have an extra hour in the morning which never hurts, for many of us are moving slowly then anyway. After several days of adjusting to being an hour ahead of everyone else, reset you clocks and watches.

When the dreaded Spring forward time change comes in April, repeat the autumn maneuver, leave the clocks alone for several days and get up and go to bed at the same time. Then switch your clocks to "Daylight Savings Time (DST)." In terms of DST, you will be getting up an hour later and going to be an hour later, but you body will experience no hour of "jet lag."

Cool, huh?

Yours truly,

James K. Sayre

3 November 2005.

End.

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Web page last updated on 3 November 2005.