Daylight Savings Time starts Sunday

Don't forget that Daylight Savings starts this Sunday.  These are the times when I miss being a full-time freelancer, because the time change didn't affect me all that much, since I usually didn't have to get up at a certain time, and certainly didn't have to punch a clock.  Unfortunately since these days I babysit on Sundays, I don't even get the day to adjust that most people do before they have to wake up early on the new time.

Because I have the experience of not having to get up early every morning, and certainly not being sleep deprived, I more or less agree with this article:

Seriously, Stop Worrying About Daylight Saving Time
The article claims that for adults who get enough sleep, the switch to Daylight Savings shouldn't be a big deal, and I think he's right.  If you're getting enough sleep every night, waking up an hour earlier than usual shouldn't be a big deal -- and within a day or two you should have fully adjusted to the new time, and be able to go to bed an hour earlier, too.

Of course, the majority of adults aren't getting enough sleep, which is why this article goes on to talk about how to get enough sleep -- because that's really the issue here, not how you're going to get through a measly one-hour time change.  The suggestions probably aren't anything new to you: They boil down to keeping distractions in the bedroom to a minimum and making your sleep schedule a priority.

(I'm glad they don't tell you not to read in bed, but instead focus on other distractions such as smartphones, because I thoroughly disagree with the typical don't-read-in-bed advice.  I have read in bed all my life, and I've never had a problem putting the book down and going to sleep.  Whether I read ten pages or a hundred, when I put the book down and turn out the light, I go right to sleep.  The only exception is when the book is one that makes me think about it a lot, and that would be the case no matter where I had been reading.)

Lately I've been carrying a huge workload, between nannying/babysitting and my freelance work, so I have to admit I haven't been getting enough sleep.  On the whole I've been getting between six and seven hours a night, but I function best in the seven-to-nine range recommended by the National Sleep Foundation.  I do have the next few days off from my weekday morning gig, so I plan to take advantage of that by sleeping in, but Sunday morning is an exception: I babysit early every Sunday morning for a little girl across town.

So, between my lack of sleep lately and the fact that I have to get up early on the day the time changes, this year's time change may be a tough one for me.  Still, I'm very much looking forward to the extra hour of daylight at the end of the day, since it'll mean more daylight for going to the barn and riding my horses in the evenings after work (a habit I'm trying to get into).