I Hate Daylight Saving Time

I HATE DAYLIGHT SAVING!  I really do.  I have hated it for decades now.  When President Bush decided to make it longer I hated it even more.  Children cannot adapt.  Small children cannot sleep, and teens cannot wake.

Plenty on places don't even have a single day of Daylight Saving Time: Hawaii, American Samoa, most of Africa, Bahrain, Guyana, the Virgin Islands, Indonesia, Laos, Nepal, Suriname, Venezuela, most of Asia, South and Central America, Australia, parts of Arizona, and Kazakhstan.  Israel does not begin until after Pesach, and ends before the fall holidays.

Central America, South America, Asia, and most of Australia have seen the light.  They used to observe, and they have given it up.  They have realized that in our worldwide society people are not up from sunrise to sunset.  Rather than saving candle wax, we are instead, burning the candle at both ends.  We simply rise in the dark, but still stay awake beyond the light.  Conceived as a money saving measure, Daylight Saving Time no longer saves resources.

To top it off, your likelihood of having a heart attack rises 17% in the first  week following the switch (some studies say the effect lasts longer).  

*& %$&* was my first thought this morning when my alarm peeled out in the darkness.  "Why?" My brain cried out.  Where before it was light, no it is dark.  Kazakhstan did away with Daylight Saving in 2005 when it was shown that over 50% of the population reacted badly to it.  There is no excuse that we live in the north.  A 2008 Finnish study showed negative effects.  Sleep patterns are disrupted by DST, although night owls have more difficulty.

Toss in the fall and spring hagim, which no seem to begin and end in the middle of the night, and summer Shabbatot, and I crave Standard Time.

Give it up people.  Call upon our governments to pass on this ridiculous custom.  The day is the same length.  It does not change merely because we've moved the clock.