Time to spring ahead

Get ready to lose a little sleep but gain a little afternoon sunshine this weekend, thanks to the arrival of Daylight Savings Time at 2:00 a.m. on Sunday morning.

Daylight Savings Time, which happens on the second Sunday in March, means that the daylight begins later in the morning and the sun sets later in the evening.

Many clocks, including cell phone and computer clocks, update automatically. But other clocks need to be manually moved ahead one hour.

It’s also a good time to remember to put new batteries in your smoke detectors. Smoke detector batteries need changing every six months.

The clocks go back to Eastern Standard Time on the first Sunday in November, which in 2015 is November 1.

Did you know?

  • Benjamin Franklin suggested the idea back in 1784, as a way to economize on sunlight and burn fewer candles during winter mornings and nights. During World War I, many countries, including the U.S., instituted daylight saving time. President Woodrow Wilson wanted to keep the new system after the war ended, but it was repealed by Congress. Daylight Savings Time did not become steadily official in the United States until Congress passed the Uniform Time Act in 1966.
  • The only two states that do not observe daylight-saving time are Arizona and Hawaii. Neither does American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
  • Recent research found that “Sleepy Monday,” the Monday after we turn the clocks forward, sees a 25% increase in the number of heart attacks compared with other Mondays of the year; the risk of having a car accident rises about 6% on the Monday and Tuesday after Daylight Savings Time begins; and workplace productivity traditionally plummets in the days after a shift to daylight saving time.

spring ahead

 

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