Darn That Day Light Savings Time is Back!

I knew it was wreaking havoc with my body, my mind, and my mood. Spring daylight savings and the whole moving the darn clock ahead leaves me in a walking coma for a full week every year. Now, this little article from last year, making the rounds on social media is giving me a little validity that I can use as proof when I blame every foible on the clock change. 7 Little known Side Effects of Daylight SavingTime shines some research on the lethargy myself and so many others have the next week or longer. While I'm not  preparing to take any tests in the next week and heaven forbid that my grumpy thoughts go very dark, I know I see the other effects.

The first effect, and acknowledgment that our bodies may never adjust to the time change, is a bit maddening. The article talks about it being that our circadian rhythm gets out of balance and never adjusts. After the deep darkness of winter, the slow increase in minutes of daylight are a blessing and a promise of spring and then summer to come.  BAM! Monday morning after  rolling the clocks forward comes. I am back into waking up and leaving the house in darkness again. Even with the longer bouts of light at the end of the day, I feel like a promise has been taken away from me. 

When my kids were young, I hated spring evenings as it was a battle each evening getting them in the house, bathed, and settled in bed by a decent hour. To make it worse, we back up to a park and playground, with the kids rooms overlooking both. In the first years living here, there were few large trees and every sound, laugh, scream, and swing clanking drifted to my kids windows. "But Justin and Jerry are still up!" whined my son each night. Had I been a stay at home mom, I would have been able to fudge and just let them sleep in a little later, but we were up with an alarm clock, and I was often dressing sleepy kids in the dark to get them to child care. 

I haven't had any work place injuries, but twice I caught my toe in my pajama bottoms.  One of the times, the trip sent me falling forward out of my laundry room, nearly missing cracking my head on a case of wine sitting, where it wasn't supposed to be, outside the door. That would have been a good story to tell the ER staff though, right?

I am not complaining that there is more light to spend leisurely evenings on walks and at ball games. In a few weeks, this time frame will seem normal again. While my circadian rhythm will be off for a while,  the days will shift back to a pattern of waking and going to bed with a hint of light.  Until fall, when I start grumbling about no sunlight again.  Happy Wednesday everyone.