Daylight saving time ends this weekend — rejoice!

An unofficial but treasured holiday for many adults comes around this weekend.

The annual switch from daylight saving time to standard time — also known as “Extra Hour of Sleep Night”.

Officially, the time change occurs at 2 a.m. Sunday morning, Nov. 5.

Why does the time change? Why at 2 a.m.? Why do Hawaii and Arizona thumb their nose at the concept?

For the answers to two of those questions and others, we turn to a period when Americans traveled not by air or interstate but by rail.

The year is 1883.

Time is a mess. Actually, “times” are a mess, as there are more than 140 local times in North America. The folks in charge of railroads decided such a willy-nilly approach didn’t work well. A train that left Station A at 4 p.m. might arrive at Station B at 3:45 p.m. because Mayor Timex decided what time it was in his town. So, they began operating on standard time.

In 1918, the Interstate Commerce Commission created the time zone system and identified Eastern, Central, Mountain, Pacific and Alaska zones (four more zones — Atlantic, Hawaii-Aleutian, Samoa and Chamorro — would come later).

Time marched on, and in 1966, the Department of Transportation — remember, the railroads started all this — received the “responsibility of regulating, fostering, and promoting widespread and uniform adoption and observance of standardized time” within each zone. Toward that goal, Congress adopted the Uniform Time Act, which established uniform time in the time zones and called for time changes twice a year, between standard time and daylight saving time. The time changes at 2 a.m. on two Sunday mornings each year — a time that initially would cause the fewest disruptions to rail traffic.

Reasons to have the two times included conserving energy, having more daytime hours of sunlight for farmers and creating jobs for time-change graphics designers.

Most of the United States and its territories agreed to go along with the time changes, but the folks running American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Hawaii and most of Arizona balked. Makes some sense — those areas aren’t lacking sunlight, and tourists don’t really care what time it is anyway.

In 2023, is changing time twice a year still necessary?

Probably not. Work habits and schedules have changed. Modern tractors and combines have lights that can virtually turn night into day. Not to mention, what the fall time change giveth, the spring time change taketh away. Want to see a disgruntled group? Visit an office the Monday morning following the switch to daylight saving time. Brutal.

Plus, studies have shown that changing times is hard on our health.

The Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University published an article in March that contends the time changes increase heart attacks and strokes, affect mood and stress and also increase traffic accidents. The time changes affect young people, too. A 2015 study published in Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine cited behavioral, learning and attention issues, as well as health issues such as “an increased risk of accidents, injuries, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes and mental health problems”.

Some medical experts have suggested ditching daylight saving time and staying on standard time all year. Among the arguments in the Johns Hopkins piece is that preserving evening daylight means less morning light, resulting in “sleepier commuters, icier roads and more school children walking to school or waiting for the bus before the sun comes up”.

A piece published in the November 2022 issue of Coloradan Alumni Magazine, quoted University of Colorado sleep researcher Kenneth Wright as supporting the idea.

“If you look at the expert consensus from the scientific societies that focus on sleep, health and circadian rhythms, all of them agree this is a bad idea. Yes, we should be getting rid of the time change. But the science suggests we should be sticking with standard time, not daylight saving time.”

This debate will likely continue. What’s certain, though, is we’re looking forward to Sunday morning.