It’s 4am. You’re awake. Again.
Not because you’re eager to rise and grind - but because some 19th-century guy thought fiddling with clocks would make candlelit mornings a little more efficient. Fast forward to 2025, and we’re still doing it… for reasons that remain, frankly, suspicious.
Welcome to Daylight Saving Time, or as I like to call it: The Great Time Heist. A relic from a time when people cooked by firelight and bought things in actual shops. And yet, here we are. Online store open 24/7, light bulbs in every room, and still clinging to the idea that saving an hour of sunlight will somehow save the world.
Spoiler: it doesn’t.
Only around 40% of countries still follow, DST, most of them are in Europe or places like ours, where a bit of extra summer sun might’ve once meant getting more chores done or having a longer workday. But in the age of 24/7 electricity, climate control, and online everything, it's lost its shine. Even scientists say it does more harm than good.
Your circadian rhythm? Wrecked.
Your kids’ sleep schedule? Gone.
Your 5am gym session? Now happening on 6 hours of broken sleep and pure spite.
And here’s the kicker: DST was originally brought in to save energy and boost retail sales. Shops could stay open later, workers could get home before dark and still buy a new butter dish. Apparently, that was urgent.
We get it. We're a store. We like sales too.
But we’ll be the first to admit - shifting time to trick people into shopping more feels like a scam.
Online shopping doesn’t care if the sun’s up. It doesn’t care if you’re in your dressing gown at midnight or scrolling during lunch at work. You can browse, add to cart, and check out at your own pace. No time trickery required. If anything, DST just messes with everyone’s internal compass, turns kids feral, and ruins perfectly good sleep routines.
It messes with your health, too.
Interrupted circadian rhythms can cause all sorts of chaos: increased stress, poor focus, mood wobbles, and a sneaky little spike in heart attacks the week after the clocks change. No thanks.
If you, like me this morning, have found yourself lying in bed at 4am wondering if it’s worth going back to sleep, or just making toast and accepting your fate, you're not alone. And if your kids are suddenly bouncing off the walls at bedtime while you’re clinging to sanity with one eye twitching, you’re also not alone.
So what’s the fix?
Well, not much… unless we rally the entire southern hemisphere to opt out together (tempting).
But in the meantime, you can create little sleep rituals to cushion the blow.
- Ease into your mornings with soft white or amber light, not harsh overheads.
- Keep the red light glow in the evening, like you're a wombat or a rock-star on tour.
If you're feeling fancy (or just pretending), treat yourself to a Camden & Co sleep mask, a soft, beautifully New Zealand made way to block out both the early sun and existential dread.
If you’re groggy, snappy and over it all - you’re not alone (I mean, I was so mad I wrote a blog about it). It’s not just you. It’s the system. And maybe it’s time (ahem) we moved on.
Until then, we’ll be here - with calm candles, cosy sleep masks, and nice things that don’t judge you for being up too early. Or too late. Or needing a nap at 2pm.
