Wake me when daylight saving reaches an end

So, daylight saving is now with us and it will soon begin to feel like summer. Good news? Well, I’m not so sure. As I write this we are only 10 hours into the latest era of daylight saving and as I look out of the window it’s grey and raining outside. My phone tells me it’s 9 degrees Celsius out there. No need to look for the sun block just yet then?

Fortunately, my smartphone was intelligent enough to adjust itself to the new time regime overnight, otherwise I would probably have spent the whole morning trying to work out how to put its clock forward one hour.

On past experience I would probably have probably have rung a total stranger in a different timezone by mistake.

Nevertheless, I still have the task of altering the clocks on the oven, the microwave, the wall clocks, the landline phone, my wristwatch and also adjust the timers on the heatpumps (yes, surprisingly, with outside temperatures still resembling winter we still want to warm the house in the morning before getting out of bed in the morning).

By the time I’ve muddled my way through sorting out that little lot it’s going to be getting on for Christmas and there will surely be some sign of improvement in the weather.

I have another beef about daylight saving too. It makes watching my favourite English Premier League football team live even more of a challenge because kickoff times in England are now buried an extra hour further into the New Zealand night. And that will become an extra two hours when British Summer Time ends and the Poms put their clocks back an hour

On top of all that I read this morning that daylight saving poses all sorts of other hazards.

For a start it’s apparently going to upset my circadian clock. I’m not exactly sure I have a circadian clock. It sounds like one of those novelty timepieces you buy from Magnamail. You know the ones, the wall clocks that have a different bird call for every hour or a different breed of dog yapping out the time. By the time 12 o’clock comes around you probably want to throw the dratted thing in the bin (the red one, of course. You can’t recycle horological birds and dogs).

I presume a circadian clock chirps out the hours but I’m certain I don’t own one. In any case I think I’m mixing up circadian with those chirruping insects you get on lovely summer days.

According to Dr Lora Wu of Massey University’s Sleep/Wake Research Centre, your circadian clock doesn’t take too well to daylight saving and needs some time to adjust (just like the timepieces around our house).

I had no idea New Zealand boasted a sleep/wake research centre and I couldn’t help wondering what they do there. I suppose it’s the only place of employment in the country where it’s permissible to go to sleep on the job.

Anyway, according to Dr Wu, we should try to get a lot of exposure to sunlight when we wake up in the morning. Given the unrelenting cloudy days we have endured in South Canterbury in the past week I supposed that means getting up early and driving to Blenheim.

However, that could be a bit of a risk because overseas studies (obviously everyone is obsessed by circadian clocks) have shown we are more prone to car accidents after adjusting our clocks. And we are also vulnerable to workplace injuries. And heart attacks.

I reckon that’s an awful lot of downsides just to get an extra hour of light at the end of the day.

But wait there’s more. To help us adjust to the new time regime Dr Wu advises we stay away from bright lights in the evening – in other words, keep away from the TV, computers and mobile devices. Oh, and forgo that evening coffee and don’t use alcohol as a sleep aid.

Gee, daylight saving seems to be taking so much fun out of summer I think I’ll follow the example of black bears in the northern hemisphere. They’re preparing to hibernate at the moment and won’t be making a reappearance until about March or April.

Good night. Wake me when the clocks go back.