'Dread it': Daylight saving ends Sunday - Some Kiwis keen to ditch it for good

Daylight savings is wrapping up this weekend, which means getting an extra hour of sleep, but… the dreaded dark skies are creeping in earlier.

If you need a refresher - ‘cause we all somehow do - clocks go back one hour at 3am on Sunday, April 5, so if you wake up feeling more well rested than usual, that’ll be why.

But while the sleep-in is a bonus, many Kiwis wish they didn’t have to trade it in for those earlier sunsets.

“Daylight saving makes me anxious. Dread it,” one person wrote on a Reddit thread reminding Kiwis to change their clocks.

“It's the point in time that I associate with winter, cold, and miserable. And the countdown to warmer days in November starts again,” said another.

A third passionately wrote: “When will common sense prevail for this to stop being a thing. Nothing worse than a depressing, dark evening?"

Others are just stoked that they’ve finally caught up with the times - literally.

“Oh, good. The time in my car will be correct again,” one person said, winning for the most relatable comment.

Every year, the same debate rolls back around - should we just scrap daylight saving changes completely?

Plenty of Kiwis reckon the constant clock changes mess with sleep schedules, routines, and even productivity - particularly for parents.

“Trying to get kids up and out of bed already is a mission in the dark,” someone else said on the Reddit post.

A petition proposing to abolish daylight saving time changes has been doing the rounds since 2021 and is still getting signatures as of this month.

The man behind the cause, James Williams, reckons “Taking away daylight saving time in New Zealand for good would help improve people's sleeping habits”.

“Studies have been coming out over recent years highlighting negative health effects from unstable sleeping patterns caused by daylight saving time,” he says, referencing a study on ‘Negative Health Effects of DST’. 

With only 51 signatures, the petition is a fair distance from gaining the momentum needed to implement a change, but it’s safe to say there are some passionate Kiwis getting behind it.

Elsewhere around the world, health impacts have been identified as a reason to remove the need for time changes. The Canadian province of British Columbia ditched daylight savings to improve people’s overall health, reduce disruptions for families, and stop the “significant amount of chaos” the clock changes have on “already busy lives”.

However, as reported by 1News, Auckland University professor Guy Warman said if NZ were to adopt permanent daylight saving, "it would be certainly worse for our circadian health" during the winter months.

For now, the change is still in motion, so like it or not, we’re still needing to adjust this weekend… or don’t, you’ll eventually see the correct time again when September rolls around.