Save yourself from Daylight Saving

I’ve been waking up at exactly 7:00am ever since Sunday. Before that, I would wake up around 8-8:30am. Of course, 7:00am Sunday, accounting for Daylight Saving Time, is really 8:00am, so “physically”, nothing has changed. However, overnight, your daily routine is pushed back or up by one hour, and we make no big deal of it. Our artificial world clocks are adjusted, but our internal clocks are stuck trying to figure out what the hell just happened. But life goes on. By Monday, we’ve forgotten all about it.

I wonder what role DST has in the difficulty of winters. It’s sort of like stumbling your way through the front door, and never quite stopping stumbling until you exit from the other side. If you get off to a bad start, you have the potential to ruin your mood for the next few months of your life.

Essentially, you’re trying to run on two different systems that haven’t synced up yet. And if you don’t sync up within the next few days, you might be screwed. Your sleep schedule is altered, which we know to be supremely important. This then alters the way you wake up, which we also know to be important to the mood of your remaining day. The mood of your day then spirals into the mood of your week, then your month, and ultimately, a whole winter.

All this to say, be careful you didn’t trip your way into DST, and that you’re not currently stumbling. If you are, catch yourself now and recompose. If you feel your routine has changed or been altered, make sure you’re ok with it. Left undetected, you may have a sour couple weeks or months without even realizing the original cause was DST. You’ll end up blaming yourself instead, and trying to fix an internal problem that probably doesn’t even exist.

I think all it takes is a sort of “Do you agree with this new flow?” If so, you’re good to go. If not, feel out what’s changed and try to readjust.