Why Are We Still Changing the Clocks? Mainers Say Enough Already

We have been hearing every fall, and every spring for the past couple of years that the ritual of changing the clocks is about to go away.  And yet this weekend we are ‘falling back’ once again.

What’s the deal?

Why hasn’t Daylight Saving Time, or Standard time gone away for good?

It’s actually pretty simple.

And it is like a lot of things that we think should happen and doesn’t. Blame it on the government.

Once again earlier this spring the bill to eliminate the change and leave Daylight Saving Time in effect all year long came up in both the House and the Senate.  Again, the bill was never voted on.

This tease has been happening for the past couple of years, and some thought the bill would finally pass and we’d be done with the clock changing. But no.

It didn’t get voted down.  It didn’t even come up for a vote in D.C.

And although there are people who want to keep changing back and forth from Standard time to Daylight Saving time, and some who want to have it Standard time year-round, most wanted Daylight Saving time in effect year-round.

Sorry to be the bearer of the news, but maybe next year it will get brought up again in the house and this time it will come to a vote.

Sleep studies say people have difficulty in the adjustment springing forward or falling back. Actually, the percentage is staggering. One in every four have trouble sleeping when the clocks move forward, or backward.

It is a tough thing to try to convince your body that it’s bedtime an hour before your mind says what time is really bedtime.

Makes sense that lots of us lose sleep when the clocks change.

And that the majority of us would rather avoid the switching of the clocks back and forth every six months.

A study by the National Institutes of Health found that physical health problems are a reality, and they include strokes, heart attacks, accidents and changes in mood.

But throw that data out of the window, we are still changing the clocks on Saturday night/Sunday morning this weekend.

At least most if not all will agree that an extra hour on the weekend this weekend is a good thing.