If you’re one of the Americans who embraces daylight saving time, then this weekend is for you.
Everyone else has until early Sunday to prepare mentally and emotionally for the time change.
The only thing more reliable than the annual spring-forward, fall-back phenomenon are the accompanying controversy and calls to do something — anything — else.
Almost everyone has an opinion. President Trump, on his social media site, said the Republican Party, which controls Congress, would “use its best effort to eliminate Daylight Saving Time, which has a small but strong constituency, but shouldn’t!”
But while taking questions Thursday, Trump hinted at doing nothing. He told reporters that daylight saving time is a “50-50 issue. And if something is a 50-50 issue, it’s hard to get excited about it.”
Whether the pro- and anti-factions are so evenly split is itself up for debate. In 2019, the Associated Press published a poll showing the vast majority of respondents — 71% — favored being on either standard or daylight saving time year round. Only 28% said they preferred the sundial shuffle.
Elon Musk, whose White House advisory team has been tasked with finding government waste, recently asked users on his social media platform X if they would prefer clocks to be an hour earlier or later if daylight saving time were canceled. Most respondents, 58%, chose the latter.
Regardless of whether you love it or hate it, daylight saving time is once again upon us. Here’s what you need to know:
When does daylight saving time start?
Daylight saving time runs from the second Sunday in March to the second Sunday in November. Digital clocks will automatically advance one hour at 2 a.m. on March 9.
Americans, especially early risers, are encouraged to prepare for the time difference if they want to get in those eight hours of sleep.
The nonprofit National Sleep Foundation recommends people gradually adjust their sleep schedule, including by napping, and use relaxation techniques such as meditation and breathing exercises to calm themselves.
Why does daylight saving time exist?
It’s important to note that long before the tick-tock and chiming of clocks, our ancestors — you know, that raggedy bunch dressed in animal fur — had to adapt to seasonal changes in daylight.
The modern-day concept of daylight saving time is often credited to (or blamed on) George Vernon Hudson, an entomologist who wanted to use more daylight hours to study insects, according to the website of the Wellington City Council in New Zealand.
Hudson, however, was not the first to make such a suggestion. In April 1784, the Journal de Paris published a satirical letter from Benjamin Franklin touting the concept. The idea came to him one morning after being out late with friends.
Franklin was surprised to learn he had slept only three hours after he was awakened by the sunlight that had entered his room through the windows, which his servant had forgotten to close, according to a Times article published in April 1922.
“I considered that if it had not been for the accident that shortened my sleep, I would have slept six or seven more hours longer,” he wrote in his letter.
The revelation prompted Franklin to suggest that Parisians could save millions of pounds of candle wax by using daylight hours more efficiently. He proposed taxing window shutters, rationing candles and having church bells ring at sunrise, and “if need be, have cannons fired in every street to open the eyes of lazy people.”
“What a discovery and what a saving!” he wrote.
What about in the U.S.?
Andrew Peters, a congressman from Massachusetts, introduced legislation in 1909 that would have moved the clocks, according to the New England Historical Society and the U.S. House of Representatives’ History, Art and Archives. The bill, however, went nowhere.
About a decade later, in March 1918, Congress approved the Standard Time Act, which included a provision for daylight hours to be added into the day to save energy costs and boost production during World War I. The law also established the U.S. time zones that exist today, according to the Department of Defense.
The provision ended after World War I. However, it was reinstated in February 1942 during World War II. Nicknamed “war time,” the time change was used to help conserve fuel and promote national security, according to the Pentagon.
The practice was scrapped again at the end of that war in favor of allowing states to adopt their own daylight-time mandates. That created problems for the transportation and broadcast industries, however, prompting Congress to once again take up the issue. In 1966, Congress approved the Uniform Time Act, which set common start and ending dates for daylight saving in the U.S.
The current March-to-November daylight saving time was established in 2005. But the debate continued.
Why is daylight saving time controversial?
Well, no one likes losing an hour of sleep.
But some health experts say the time change increases the risk of heart attacks, strokes and workplace injuries. Among them is the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, which has called for the end of daylight saving time.
On the other hand, some economists, business groups and lawmakers say the extra hour of light helps reduce energy consumption and contributes to a boost in retail sales and tourism.
