Daylight Saving is over.  It’s time to start spending.  More electricity, more body heat, more prayer.  Time to summon all my resources for the dark season ahead, the long hours indoors with small children.   Soon night will begin at 4 pm, that dark like a window slamming shut.

When I was in college, “falling back” meant an extra hour of sleep on Homecoming weekend.  What a gift to wake at 10 am after dancing and party-hopping till the early hours, only to realize it was 9!  A free hour!  I’d sleep some more, meet my friends for brunch and debrief the night’s rumors, then head to the library for a day of reading in a comfy chair, punctuated by a long run. 

For parents, there’s no such reprieve.  Changing the clocks doesn’t change a child’s circadian rhythms, and it may take weeks for everyone to adjust.  The preschooler who once slept till 7 now wakes at 6.  And most painfully, the early-bird toddler who used to rise in the 5’s may now get up– ready for action– in the 4’s…

At least it’s getting light in the mornings when I stumble for the teakettle.  At least the school-kids aren’t waiting for the bus in the dark.  At least the dairy farmers are milking cows in the rosy dawn now, part of the diurnal cycle.  Farmers as a breed notoriously love Standard Time– especially the Amish, who refuse to observe the seven months of Daylight Saving, calling it “Fast Time.”

 Daylight Saving (not Savings, a common misconception) began in the U.S. as a way to maximize war production during World War I.  The federal government mandated the time change, taking advantage of the extra hours of daylight between April and October.  During World War II, the government again required states to observe the time change.  Then, in 1966, Congress passed the Uniform Time Act, which standardized Daylight Saving Time for the country-except Arizona, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and American Samoa, which (like the Amish) have all chosen not to observe DST.

A few years ago, we got even more light in the afternoons.  The Bush Administration passed the Energy Policy Act in 2005, extending DST by four weeks.  Advocates hoped the Act would save 10,000 barrels of oil each day through reduced use of power by businesses.  But cynics claimed it merely gave CEOs more sunlit hours on the golf course, and consumers more daylight to shop.  Either way, experts agree that it is exceedingly difficult to determine the energy savings– if any– from Daylight Saving Time.

If I lived in equatorial Samoa, I too would live on Standard Time year-round.  Beyond my sugarcane-thatched hut, the sun would rise over the mountains around 6 am and set into the turquoise ocean around 6 pm (with only an hour’s variation between summer and winter).  My bronzed children would frolic in the white sand while I peeled mangoes and breadfruit beneath the coconut palms.  Daddy would wave to us from his fishing boat below the sea-cliffs.  In our Kava-induced calm, we wouldn’t know about Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), the cyclical depression that overwhelms many residents of Northern climates.

Each November I struggle with the lack of light.  Even though I love Vermont’s mid-winter playground, in late fall I instinctively turn away from the world.  Craving carbohydrates and sleep, I’m sluggish as an animal nesting down for hibernation.

The symptoms of SAD are crippling– hopelessness, exhaustion, social withdrawal– and I’ve tried a bevy of treatments to prevent them.  Vitamin D, light therapy, exercise… This year my doctor upped my dosage of antidepressants and prescribed a brisk walk at noon every day.  I swallowed my shame about needing yet more medication for my mood disorder.  I now understand the bleak alternative, the chance of a major depression that could last for months, burdening my entire family.  I also know that sleep-deprivation (thanks to my night-waking toddler) increases my risk for SAD, as does feeling isolated, housebound with small children.

Sometimes I remind myself that New England winters could be worse.  My Finnish friend, Virpi, shared stories about growing up in a remote village in Lapland.  At her latitude, winter daylight consisted of murky dusk from 10 am to 2 pm.  To ward off despair, the Finns relied on vodka, frequent saunas, and lit cross-country ski trails, said Virpi– but they still had the world’s highest suicide rate.  Now, happily, Finland has ceded that grim title to Belarus and moved back to 10th place.  Virpi herself married a jovial Irishman and relocated to Dublin, where the winters (while not tropical) are milder.

But despite my beach fantasies, I’d miss the seasons if I moved to the Equator.  There is treasure in the dark days, if only we can mine it.  After the solar-powered Vermont summer– gardening! travel! action!– winter is an intuitive turning-within.  We can slow down, rest, cook and read, witnessing the stillness and silence of nature.  Shaman Stephanie Foy advises us to nurture our winter selves, partaking in the “natural cycle of dark days and internal knowings.”  But we can also seek community, inviting people into our lives and our homes, burning any candle to keep the darkness at bay.

Tags:   antidepressants · daylight saving time · depression · SADNo Comments