I see we’re fiddling with nature’s clock again this weekend, the twice-yearly move that every dog views as a dumbfounding feat of human arrogance.

That’s not only because we get caught in the crossfire – it’s because it’s a home goal. And The Boss is with me on this.

He says the research has shown for years that daylight saving – particularly when the clocks are moved forward an hour – results in more heart attacks, strokes, and car accidents. Not to mention increasing obesity, mental health and behavioural problems in adolescents.

So why do it? A New Zealand bug collector, George Hudson, is the culprit, coming up with the idea back in 1895. He wanted more daylight after his work shift finished so he could collect insects. And being a human, he figured he could adjust nature to suit him.

It caught on around the start of the World War I, when the justification was to save on lighting costs - but any saving has long disappeared with the advent of air-conditioning.

Daylight saving came and went between the wars, then five Australian states introduced it in the early 1970s. Queensland, the NT and Western Australia refused.

Apart from the health risks, The Boss reckons its hard on farmers and other outdoor workers, who have to get up in the dark and are then lumbered with an extra hour of work - in mid-summer temperatures that can exceed 40C.

Any dog will tell you that those circadian rhythms (for both hounds and people) that regulate our appetites, moods and sleep, evolved way back in cave-dwelling times to align comfortably with bright days and dark nights.

The darker mornings next week will decrease our levels of the mood-boosting hormone serotonin, whereas more light later in the evening will delay the production of melatonin, the hormone that helps us sleep.

In other words – and it is obvious to a dog – morning light is more beneficial than evening light. When you take away the morning light and add to the evening light, it upsets the bodily rhythms honed over thousands of years of practice.

So it’s no wonder that weird things happen. "That one-hour change may not seem like much, but it can wreak havoc on people's mental and physical wellbeing in the short term," says Dr Charles Czeisler, professor of sleep medicine at Harvard Medical School's Division of Sleep Medicine.

“The more light exposure you get at the wrong times, the weaker the circadian clock. All of those things that are downstream — for example, your immune system, your energy — don’t match up quite as well,” he added.

New Boy and I just keep on doing what we do, of course, but the professor says humans have trouble adjusting their sleep schedule to the new time. For the first few days or even a week, they may go to bed later or wake up earlier than usual, which can cause sleep deprivation.

“Disrupted sleep can cause people to feel fatigued, groggy and less focused,” says Dr Czeisler. Poor sleep caused by daylight saving can also exacerbate existing problems like depression and anxiety.

A more recent Stanford University study compared three different time policies: permanent standard time, permanent daylight saving time, and jumping between the two every year, as we currently do.

It found that staying in standard time or staying in daylight saving time is definitely better than switching twice a year.

But no-one thought to check out what the Romans did. They just divided the daylight into 12 “hours,” with sundials and water clocks to keep track. So summer hours stretched up to 75 minutes long and winter hours shrank to just 45 minutes.

Two thousand years ago, they were smart enough to take advantage of all the daylight there was, without messing up anyone’s rhythms. Woof!

Kyabram Free Press Google News Panels

Wednesday, 23rd June 2027

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