If the 2020 and 2021 news cycle has made one thing clear, it’s that life is nearly impossible to predict these days. But amid the barrage of strange and generally unfavorable news, one thing remains constant: Twice a year, in most of the United States, we change our clocks. And for a few weeks every winter, many of us lament about shorter days and reduced sunlight.
Before we get into the bright spot (there’s good news here, I promise), let’s take a little trip down memory lane. It might surprise you to learn that the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) oversees things like time zones and daylight saving time (DST). The USDOT maintains that, by moving our clocks forward one hour during warmer months and one hour back during cooler months, we save energy by shifting our electricity usage accordingly. Additionally, the USDOT says that DST saves lives by preventing traffic injuries because people can go about more of their activities during daylight. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 made it possible for states to exempt themselves from DST (and many states and territories, including Hawaii, parts of Arizona, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands don’t observe it), according to the USDOT. Still, if your state or area changes clocks twice a year, they’re required to adhere to the federally mandated date and time for making those changes, the USDOT explains.
The controversy surrounding DST has been alive for decades, according to the Farmer’s Almanac. In 2019, the United States Senate introduced a bill called the Sunshine Protection Act that would make turning clocks back a thing of the past. And in 2020, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) published its position on the matter in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. The organization stated that, while there are benefits around conserving energy, DST isn’t the greatest thing to happen to our overall health. Seasonal time changes don’t coincide with our circadian rhythm—the internal clock that governs our sleep-wake cycle—and some research has even found an association between that misalignment and an increased risk for cardiovascular disease and other health conditions, according to the AASM.
Here’s the thing. While some people find changing clocks annoying every year, last year—when many of us were pretty homebound—the time change might’ve seemed more difficult than usual. If you live somewhere with colder winters, the time change might’ve signaled the end of the outdoor activities that got you through the summer months. Or, if you deal with seasonal depression, the pandemic might’ve made it harder to reach for your usual coping strategies.
Still, I’m here with a bit of good news: Even without abolishing daylight saving time, nature is giving you a little more light every day if you live in the Northern Hemisphere.
Why? The Earth revolves around the sun (which takes 365 days), and it rotates on an axis so that nearly every part of the Earth gets at least some sunlight every 24 hours. But because it rotates on an axis, different parts of the planet are closer and farther away from the sun at different times of the year—hence, equinoxes (when the Earth’s axis isn’t tilted) and solstices (when it is most tilted), the National Weather Service explains. When we celebrated the first day of winter on December 21, the Northern Hemisphere was the farthest from the sun it will be all year, according to the Farmer’s Almanac. This means the night was long, and the day was the shortest it will be all winter. That sounds like a downer, but every day since then, the days have gotten longer by a few minutes in the Northern Hemisphere. In fact, if you plug your location into the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Solar Calculator and look over the sunset times for the rest of the year, you’ll notice the sun sets a little later each day. That, my friends, is small good news: Every single day, there’s a little more light.
Whether you use this bit of information to take an evening walk, or you just notice that you don’t have to turn on your desk lamp at 3 p.m., this small bit of good news is a reminder that—even as the world remains unpredictable—we can find little bits of good news all around us. If it’s helpful, you might put a reminder in your phone to notice the light or make a list of small good news to share with your group chat. Ultimately, even if you forget about this as soon as you finish reading, it might be helpful to remember that we’ll get through this period in our history one (for now, increasingly longer) day at a time.
Related:
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- How to Be Hopeful, Even When It’s Really, Really Hard
- You’re Not Wrong for Hoping 2021 Would Be Better—And Being Upset That It Isn’t