"Daylight-saving time can affect your health," said the small headline in the New York Times last week.

The short, all-too-modest article states: "It does seem clear from studies that a one-hour time adjustment can have unintended health consequences." Then it goes on, "... studies have suggested links between time change and increases in heart attacks, suicides and accidents, though scientists say more study is needed."

More study, my eye.

I know it's difficult to be on the wrong side of Ben Franklin, who first proposed daylight-saving time in order to conserve candle tallow. Nevertheless, it's nuts to start daylight-saving time as early as March and keep it running into November.

If you are tired of listening to tepid conversations in which everyone agrees _ "Madoff deserves life" or "Who really believed Levi and Bristol would get married?" then bring up DST. The love-the-dawn crowd and the love-late-sunsets crowd will probably generate enough heat to let you turn down your thermostat three degrees.

Count me among the former group. Just about the time you've begun to feel a daily lift of the spirit from seeing early sunshine strike the treetops and hearing the dawn-inspired birdsong as you fetch the paper, walk the dog or go for a start-the-day run _ blam! Back to predawn darkness for weeks.

I concede, of course, that is the case only for those of us who have to get up before 7:30 a.m. However, that includes most anyone with children or a typical workday start of 8 or 9 a.m.

The DST-enforced dark mornings are particularly bad on high school students. Because many systems start high schools at the insane hour of 7:15 a.m., you have sleep-deprived teens trying to learn calculus or chemistry, or anything really, at what their bodies believe to be 6:15 a.m. That is not just cruel, it's counter-productive to learning.

The Times article says studies found that people's circadian rhythms _ the body's internal clock _ refused to adjust to DST. That's just as I have always suspected.

I've been a daylight-saving time skeptic for years _ though I admit I do love those late summer sunsets, when dusk falls at 9 o'clock. But those dusks would be just as lovely at 8. So if you want to get up earlier in the day, please just set your alarm earlier. Why force your preference on the rest of us?

For years DST was kept within reasonable bounds, though. Then Congress got involved and started stretching it. The most recent March madness began in 2005, when Congress added a month to DST, starting in 2007. The theory was that it would save energy, because people wouldn't use as much electricity in the evenings.

That shows how dumb politicians can be. Gee, think it might have dawned _ get it? _ on someone that when you get up before daylight, you probably turn on the lights and, in March and late October, probably turn up the heat?

Even the Energy Department opposed the 2005 DST expansion idea. And indeed, recent studies show extended DST uses more energy, not less, and costs households more.

So now we're stuck with an energy-saving idea that doesn't save energy; may cause heart attacks, suicides and accidents; and almost certainly makes many of us needlessly groggy as we stagger from bed in the dark, after weeks of early morning daylight.

To top it off, if Congress truly were to try to reduce DST into reasonableness, they'd be excoriated for turning their focus away from more pressing matters: an economy as low as Death Valley and unemployment rising like a bouquet of helium balloons.

I just hope Congress and President Obama, as they puzzle out how to save the world's finances, aren't as groggy as the rest of us. Pass the coffee, please.

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ABOUT THE WRITER

Mary Newsom is an associate editor at the Charlotte Observer. Readers may write to her at the Observer, P.O. Box 30308, Charlotte, N.C. 28030, or via e-mail at mnewsom@charlotteobserver.com.

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