It's about time for that semiannual ritual of changing our clocks, as another summer of Daylight Saving Time comes to an end, and researchers say they will be keeping an eye on us to see how we handle it, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
Kristin Eckle-Mahan is a researcher on circadian rhythms at UT Health in Houston, and she says our brains will instantly know that something has changed and will adapt to it.
"It responds directly to light, so light activates that region, and basically orchestrated rhythmicity in that part of your brain," she said. "Its interesting, most organisms have that sort of light derives rhthymcity."
This is the 'good' time change, because we will gain an hour of sleep early Sunday when the clocks are set back. But the change has a tendency to cause problems in the evenings, where it will suddenly get darker earlier.
Several Texas lawmakers have introduced bills to abolish Daylight Saving Time and to stay on standard time all year, saying changing the clocks twice a year is confusing and unnatural.
But major industries, including sporting events, recreation, and theme parks oppose getting rid of Daylight Saving Time, because the extra hour of daylight in the evening makes people more likely to attend evening events, and saves them a fortune on lighting costs.
But the basic premise of Daylight Saving Time has faded over the last forty years, since President Carter ordered nationwide DST as a way to 'save energy' by allowing us to keep out lights off later in the summer.
With the extra hour of daylight in the summer, the summer heat lingers longer, prompting additional air conditioning use. And, with a/c systems nearly ubiquitous today, the extra cost of running the air conditioning in the evening has more than cancelled out any savings from keeping the lights off, meaning DST now uses more energy than it saves.
So how do we deal with the time change? Eckel-Mahan says there are several tactics to use.
"Some people try to take melatonen early in the day, but similarly you can also keep the bright lights on later in the day, and then sleep in later."A
lso, it isn't a bad idea to use the twice yearly time change as a reminder to change the batteries in dormant devices, like smoke alarms.