Bob CollinsA little turn of the clock certainly has some people upset.
The turning back the hands of time early Sunday morning has resulted in terrible times for people, mostly those with kids with internal clocks.
Why, it’s gotten so bad that someone has even posted a petition on the White House site to repeal daylight saving time, which is what caused the clocks to be set ahead in the first place. It only needs 99,996 more votes before it qualifies to be officially ignored by White House officials.
This, Alexander Abad-Santos of The Atlantic writes, is “America’s greatest shame.” Think about that.
“God, I love getting up an hour earlier,” said no one ever. “Me too. I can’t wait to have my schedule messed up in the fall,” no one replied.
A 2011 Rasmussen poll (for what it’s worth, Rasmussen can be a bit skewed when it comes to conservative politicians but seems to have no known bias against time zones) found that 47 percent (ha, Romney, ha) of Americans said DST was not worth the hassle.
So how do we fix all of this? Over at Quartz, there’s an idea to just have two timezones. But let’s be clear here. The real evil here is change. No one really minds if 4 a.m. is 4 a.m. They (and their possible heart attacks) mind if for some reason or another that 4 a.m. is now 5 a.m and will be 4 a.m. in a few months. It’s time to stop this insanity.
National Geographic also joined the caucus, noting that having to turn your clock ahead an hour in the spring could kill you.
Shifting our clocks an hour naturally makes for a few groggy mornings, but some research suggests a far more dangerous impact to our bodies—an increased risk of heart attack. A 2012 study by University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Martin Young found that the risk of heart attack surges by 10 percent on the Monday and Tuesday after moving the clocks ahead an hour each spring.
“Exactly why this happens is not known but there are several theories,” Young said in a statement accompanying the study.
“Sleep deprivation, the body’s circadian clock, and immune responses all can come into play when considering reasons that changing the time by an hour can be detrimental to someone’s health.”
Got a headache today? Blame the clock.
