CONDON’S CORNER
Everyone Should Be on Toddler Time (Standard Time)
[Published March 8, 2025, by The Daily Progress, the daily newspaper of Charlottesville, Virginia, and The News Virginian, the daily newspaper of Waynesboro, Virginia. Published by The Daily News-Record, the daily newspaper of Harrisonburg, Virginia, on February 20, 2025.]
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Getting
up early often enables you to enjoy a beautiful sunrise. |
Congress
has tried—and plans to try again—to abolish the annoying twice-a-year ritual of
changing clocks by placing the United States permanently on Daylight Saving Time (DST). But before making this extremely impactful decision, our
representatives need to first consult our little people—those who don’t suffer
from government foolishness and clocks, and know naturally when to wake up—our
toddlers who function on toddler time (i.e., Standard Time).
A
young child—not needing to follow arbitrary rules created by adults for
adults—follows mandatory rules determined by the biological clock which humans
and other organisms possess. A toddler instinctively wakes up early in the
morning in time to be active during the first sunlit hours of the day, which is
vital for his system to function properly. Adults benefit similarly; that first
exposure to the Sun’s photons suppresses the production of sleep-inducing
melatonin (a hormone), waking us up to take on the day!
An
internal biological clock determines when an organism should be active and when
it should be dormant. Known as circadian rhythms, they’re different for various
organisms, but—in general— are based upon the variable rising and setting times
of the Sun.
Obviously,
these biological rhythms are important, or they wouldn’t exist. Every aspect of
the natural world has a particular purpose that perpetuates life by helping
organisms fit well into their environment. Humans, who don’t see well at night,
are more suited to daylight rather than nighttime activity and therefore have
biological clocks set to get them up and about in the morning. Mice, on the
other hand, wake up as the light of day is fading in order to forage under
cover of darkness to be less conspicuous to predators.
Humans,
however, want to run their lives as they see fit; not as Mother Nature
demands. Biologically, we are supposed to become less active as darkness is
falling, with sleep eventually overtaking us so our bodies can clean up our
internal system by repairing interior damage done during the day’s activity.
Without sufficient sleep, your body gets into trouble because it doesn’t get
these indispensable actions completed, such as restoring its immune system or
cleansing its brain of toxic chemicals.
Unfortunately,
most people are not at all aware of this essential-to-our-wellbeing purpose of
sleep and thus treat slumber as a waste of time, which it surely is not. This
lack of respect for good-quality and a good quantity of sleep is exactly why
too many folks argue for permanent Daylight Saving Time that literally robs us
of the sleep our bodies stipulate that we get.
Consider
the practical implications of DST: In the eastern U.S., families need to stay
up until almost 10 PM to watch fireworks on the fourth of July—a holiday often followed
by a work day, which means adults won’t get the seven to eight hours of sleep
they should get to perform well at their jobs. Staying up late every night
continues all summer because no one wants to go to bed when the Sun is still
up, creating a huge sleep deficit for young and old alike by the time autumn
rolls around.
To
get more sunshine, follow a toddler’s and preschooler’s example: Be an early
bird. Rise shortly before the Sun, have breakfast, and enjoy those first rays
of sunshine each day, as Mother Nature intended. You can reset your biological
clock by going to bed earlier and awakening earlier. Soon it will come
naturally—as it biologically should!
Don’t
let the manipulative use of language—such as naming the bill to make DST
permanent, “The Sunshine Protection Act”—fool you into thinking you’ll somehow
get more hours of sunlight, which, of course, is nonsense. The day is 24 hours
long, no matter the system employed for making order of it, and the hours of
sunshine versus darkness is independent of this artificially contrived system
that ignores biology and therefore is, in plain speaking, stupid.
Much
talk has taken place for decades about Americans not getting enough sleep and
the dangerous consequences resulting from this situation, such as more
vehicular accidents due to falling asleep at the wheel or poor reaction time,
and stressed motorists confronting others (road rage), sometimes fatally. So
how can Congress possibly take seriously the idea of keeping DST year around,
when it’s not protecting sunshine, but rather, stealing sleep?
To avoid such ill effects from lack of
sleep as mental health issues, neurological concerns, changes in your
appearance (such as dark, undereye circles), vulnerability to illness, weight
gain, higher stress levels that contribute to heart disease and abnormal heart
rhythm, and much more, according to the Cleveland Clinic, you should let your
representatives know how inane DST would be year around. Tell them we all need
to be on Toddler Time.
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/happens-body-dont-get-enough-sleep
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