Set your clock forward in the spring? Your body stays behind

I never used to mind daylight savings time, and I usually adjusted to it pretty quickly. At least I thought I did. But then I had kids. Young children can't tell time, and therefore don't have the benefit of using the clock to adjust to the change. All they know is that their day is suddenly out-of-whack. In our house, that usually means a 4-7 days of waking up too early (or late), not being hungry at meal time, or being famished an hour before dinner, and generally just trying to gradually readjust.

But do we really readjust? Recent studies say that in the autumn, we generally adjust to the return to normal time pretty quickly. But in the spring, our bodies never biologically adjust when daylight savings time begins. Before electricity and the dawn of artificial light, people lived by the sun rising and setting, and our body's circadian rhythms still run that way.

As one expert points out, daylight savings time is only one way that we try to change our biological schedule. Lights, TVs, alarm clocks...these things all help us stay up late or get up early, no matter what the sun might be doing. He doesn't see anything inherently dangerous in this, or in daylight savings time itself. But people have long argued that the time change really isn't necessary, and you know what? I'm wondering if they could be right. What do you think?