When will Georgia 'fall back' for the last time?
UNITED STATES - NOVEMBER 4 (FILE): The sun rises on Atlanta, Ga., on Wednesday, November 4, 2020. (Photo By Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images) (Getty Images)
It's almost time for clocks to fall back on Nov. 6. That means most people will gain an hour of sleep.
On Nov. 6, the sun will rise at 7:44 a.m. and set at 5:54 p.m.
But could it be the last time Georgians fall back?
When does Daylight Saving Time End?
How daylight saving time impacts your health
This weekend we'll be springing forward as daylight savings time begins, but that lost hour can have serious health and safety consequences. Dr. Anne Marie Morse from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine joins Good Day to talk about why a permanent switch to standard time may be best.
Daylight Saving Time runs from Sunday, March 13, 2022, to Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022.
Could this be the last time we have to turn our clocks back in the fall? Gov. Brian Kemp signed a bill that went into effect in July 2021 which means Georgia would observe daylight saving time year-round once congress authorizes states.
A bipartisan federal bill called the Sunshine Protection Act would allow us to stop springing forward and falling back for good, but it is waiting on the House for approval and then President Joe Biden's signature. It unanimously passed in the Senate in March.
According to The Hill, the measure has stalled:
"The main impediments dimming the legislation’s chances of passing appear to be fundamental disagreements over its language and a general consensus that other matters take precedence," the Hill's Mychael Schnell wrote.
According to the Sleep Foundation, the adjustments to and from Daylight Saving Time creates issues such as "upticks in heart problems, mood disorders, and motor vehicle collisions."
Other experts claim that making Daylight Saving Time permanent could lead to more cardiovascular disease, obesity, and other health ailments.
There's still at least one more adjustment to make when we lose an hour on March 12, 2023. There is a chance that after next March we may never alter our sleeping habits for time changes again.
Do I turn the clocks back?
With modern technology, people have to worry about it less, with most phones auto-setting themselves to sync with the time change and computers also updating automatically.
However, it still can be confusing. Most people remember the trick to clock changing with the old adage of "spring forward, fall backward," which reminds us to set the clocks forward for Daylight Saving Time in the spring and backward for Standard Time but more than 12% of people in the United States turn their clocks in the wrong direction. Another 11% don't know which way to turn clocks.
Those results come from a 2019 Rasmussen Reports survey of 1,000 adults.
Twenty seven percent of the respondents from a prior survey had arrived late or early somewhere because they didn't change their clocks at the start or end of DST.
Why do we have daylight savings time?
So What is Daylight Saving Time? Its origins go back to Benjamin Franklin. He supposedly came up with the idea of Daylight Saving Time as a way of allowing people to use daylight more effectively. Yet, it was not implemented across most of the United States until 1967.
The point of setting the clocks back is to give an extra hour of daylight in the afternoon while having one less hour of light in the morning. The goal is to conserve energy with more light during the hours when most people are active, although some studies have found little energy savings.