Spring Forward, Fall Back

This past weekend, many of us here in the United States experienced the annual ritual of changing our clocks from Daylight Savings time to standard time. Arizona and Hawaii are the only two States along with the American territories of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and America Samoa that don't observe Daylight Saving time.

I'm not sure how that one-hour swing in time affects you, but it screws with my internal clock in a bad way.

In the Spring, when we move the clocks ahead and lose an hour, I'm exhausted and disoriented for a few days. I often feel like I'm running behind.  All of this is understandable since I did actually lose an hour of my life.

In the Fall, like this past weekend, we turn back time (homage to Cher!) and regain that hour. Again, I'm exhausted and disoriented for a few days. Rather than feeling like I'm running behind, I feel like I have hours before nightfall.

Actually, being a little out of sorts is common during the time change.  While our brains are able to understand what we see on the clock, our body uses it's natural internal clock in tune with our surroundings and environment.  While time has changed on the outside, our body doesn't catch up so quickly.

It doesn't take long.  We quickly adapt and nudge our body-clock into a new time zone by the changes when we rise in the morning, eat our meals during the day and finally crawl back into bed at night.

Even though it's fall, I'm going to try to spring forward this morning and keep moving ahead.

And in case you were wondering, the first idea of having DST came in 1784 by Ben Franklin in an essay he authored titled "The Economical Project." Thanks Ben!

BareNakedBill.blogspot.com