Daylight Saving Time

As I write this on Sunday morning, we've now switched over to New Zealand Daylight Time, putting our clocks forward by one hour until early April next year. The touted benefits are that we can enjoy more time in the evenings outside when it's still light, and the sun isn't rising so early in the morning.

For me, being an early waker, if not early riser, I'm anticipating the prospect of waking at a more normal time, rather than my recent 5am. Hopefully, I'll manage to fool my body clock for some time and wake at 6am instead.

There's an interesting history to Daylight Saving Time. New Zealand first set a standard time back in 1868, being 11 hours and 30 minutes ahead of GMT. Then in 1895 George Hudson, a New Zealander and entomologist, enjoyed collecting bugs and proposed the modern concept of daylight saving time (adding an additional two hours) to allow him to collect more bugs in his evenings.

In 1946 we adopted what was then known as New Zealand summer time being 12 hours ahead of GMT to cover the whole year. Then in 1974 daylight savings was trialled again, moving the clocks an hour forward for summer. From 1975 onwards it became a permanent fixture, and was extended to cover more of the year back in 2006 (though it now seems obscenely long! I know I'm always looking forward to it ending when the first Sunday in April rolls around.)

Daylight saving was introduced as an energy saving measure around World War One, though its effect on energy these days is likely minor, with some studies showing an increase in energy use. My guess is that it very much depends on where you live and individual lifestyles.

One quirky study, published in the New Zealand Medical Journal suggested that trampoline injuries are most prevalent at the beginning of daylight saving time. I would guess the novelty of being able to be outside later in the evening and the warming weather might well explain this effect.