The End of DST: What Will You Do with Your Extra Hour?

All of those exhausted from Halloween take heart: You get an extra hour of sleep this weekend. Daylight Saving Time ends at 2 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 4, so turn your clock back an hour before heading to bed on Saturday night (unless you live in Arizona or Hawaii, two states that remain on consistent schedules).

Early risers often enjoy this time shift because they wake up to more sun. On the down side, evenings get darker earlier -- making that commute home seem awfully late. While it may take a few days to completely adjust, experts say that “falling back” is usually easier on the body than “springing ahead.” With many Americans already sleep-deprived, “losing” that hour in the spring can make them even more tired, and both car accidents and workplace injuries have been found to increase in the days following the change.

So why do we bother doing this? As this article notes, the objective is to extend daylight hours during the warmest part of the year in order to reduce the need for lighting during the evening. Some credit Benjamin Franklin with the idea for this time shift, but the practice was first implemented in Germany and Britain as a way to conserve energy during World War I. The U.S. experimented with various time-change schedules during both world wars, but it wasn’t until 1966 when the Uniform Time Act was passed that all states opting to observe Daylight Saving Time moved their clocks on the same day.

Image courtesy of Thinkstock Photos.