I think we all know that the bi-yearly daylight savings time can be rough. The hour gained in the fall isn’t so bad. Who wouldn’t like an extra hour of sleep? However, the hour lost in the spring can be a real killer. That one hour, that 23-hour day that everyone dreads, is arguably one of the worst days of the year. In light of this recent tragedy, here are some ways that you can (hopefully) recover from the disaster that is “springing forward.”
It’s obviously extremely important to set your clock one hour forward for the spring daylight savings time. Failing to do so results in being late for whatever obligations you have later during the day. In order to make sure you don’t forget to set your clock back and aren’t late for anything, my best advice would be to acquire a large number of clocks, around thirty or so. Set each clock’s alarm to go off at the same time and then carefully arrange them around yourself. The constant ticking away of their hands will either relax you or remind you of the impermanence of life and that death eventually comes for us all. No worries, though. When all the alarms eventually go off simultaneously, you will most certainly be awake, if not frightened for your life. Either way, all the alarms will ensure you don’t get a late start to the day!
If you’re feeling tired because of the sleep you lost Saturday night, try taking 12 five-minute naps throughout the day to make up for the lost hour. Five minutes times 12 equals one hour, so you should be all caught up as far as sleep goes. For those of you out there with busy schedules, however, I understand how you might (ironically) not have time throughout your day to get in those essential five minutes. Don’t worry, there’s a quick fix for this. Instead of five-minute naps, try 60 one-minute naps. You still get the same amount of sleep, but you don’t have to sleep as much all in one go. Some of the best times to sleep are those annoying little intervals of time throughout the day when you would otherwise be doing nothing. Some prime examples of this are when you are in line to get lunch, waiting in the elevator or waiting on that stupid document to load on your computer. Think of all that precious time you could have used for napping, wasted.
So maybe you’re not sleepy, but just plain exhausted. I would suggest investing in a large amount of energy drinks, coffee or both. Drink a few cups of coffee or liquid energy in the morning and you’ll perk right up. Sometimes, though, there are times that you need way more energy than simply coffee or a can of Monster is able to provide. What I am about to tell you should only be used in dire cases of daylight-savings-time-related exhaustion. Grab a coffee maker and set it up like you were going to make a normal cup of coffee, but this won’t be just any old cup of joe. When you are all ready to go, instead of pouring water into the tank, fill it up with your energy drink of choice. You’ll be lucky to sleep at all for the next two days after consuming the resulting brew.
For my last piece of advice, I’m not exactly sure how you would do this, but I believe in you. All you have to do is find Father Time and beat him into submission. How hard can it be to punch an old guy’s lights out? After you break a of few of the deity of time’s bones, it should be easy to peel back the threads of time itself and literally get your lost hour back. I’m not really sure how doing this would affect everyone else’s time, but who cares? You get that extra hour of sweet, sweet sleep back. So whatever method you choose for recovery from DST, good luck and godspeed!