Winter Hours and Mental Health Days For Everyone!

This morning, I woke up at 6:45 and looked outside my window and thought, this is not right.

It was still dark outside.  I know the days have been getting progressively shorter, but today was the first time that I really noticed how dark it was when I woke up in the morning.  Granted, 6:45 is not that early to wake up, but that only reinforces my belief that it should not be dark outside when I wake up.  I live 5 minutes from my office so I don't have to get up when it's dark outside.  I am not a morning person as it is, and having it still be dark when my alarm goes off, thus tricking my body into thinking it's still sleepy-time, is not enjoyable.

I have never relished the idea of waking up when it's dark.  When I was young and rode the bus to school, the bus stopped at my house at about 6:55, so it would actually still be dark when I was outside waiting for the bus in the winter.  It was awful.  I always looked forward to the arrival of spring because it meant it would be light outside when I went to school... and sometimes even when I woke up in the morning.  Sunshine means "wake up."  Didn't people use to wake up with the sun?  The cock-a-doodle-doo and all that?  I propose a return to that system.  Though, not the part where you work from dawn to dusk.  That sounds terrible.  I will skip that portion of historical time-keeping.

Now, I have no problem staying up late at night, well past dark.  I will admit that I often have trouble making myself do anything productive in the evening once the light is gone, but I just don't associate sunset with bedtime as I do sunrise with waketime (which may be a word I just made up. Webster's, I'll have my people contact your people...).  I will stay up until all hours of the night, and it doesn't bother me one bit.  In fact, I rarely go to bed before 11:30.  But, something about waking up and it still being dark is depressing to me.  I associate it more with having to leave on a long trip somewhere than with normal activity.  Growing up, we often drove to Florida for vacation.  And, my mom had the idea to leave at 2:00 a.m. so we would get down there by the afternoon and still have "the rest of the day" at the beach.  Gotta squeeze in all the beach you can!  I always begged her to let us fly so I didn't have to get up in the middle of the night, but to no avail.  Without fail, I would go right back to sleep in the car and sleep until a normal waking hour... like 7:00.  Obviously, I would never survive shift work.  Thank God for regular-ish business hours!

Which brings me to my great epiphany that I had this morning.  When I woke up, I thought to myself, work hours should change based on daylight hours.  It was like a light went off in my head!  (unintentional pun-nyness)  I mean, hey, we have daylight saving time to make the day "longer"... why not abbreviate work hours in the winter?  Right now, I work 8-6.  It is daylight out for most of my work day year-round, but in the winter, I have basically zero daylight hours outside of the time I'm at work.  It is dark for the rest of my day.  All of the sunshine is wasted on work!  In the summer, I get plenty of morning and evening daylight based on my 8-6 work schedule.  To get the same amount of sunshine outside of work in winter, I think I would have to work 9-4 or something like that.  Ahh, even just imagining it is glorious!  9-4... now, that would be the life.  And if any of you actually work 9-4, I hate you.  Just saying.  I wonder if Seasonal Affective Disorder (appropriately acronymed SAD) is a legitimate basis to cut back winter working hours.  You know, like "mental health days."  Does anyone actually take those?  Ah, to have a job where your boss wouldn't laugh at you and tell you to stop ruining his mental health if you told him you were taking a "mental health day."  Who gets to take those?  Yoga instructors?  Seems like your mental health would be a good excuse for not being able to teach yoga effectively.

The idea of "winter hours" is just the newest in my long list of great ideas to increase worker productivity and satisfaction, or at least my productivity and satisfaction.  Along with afternoon naps, non-smoke breaks, Casual Everyday, early releases on Friday, working from home on Mondays, free child care, mandatory four weeks of vacation... the list goes on and on.


As a parting note, Wikipedia describes the symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder as the following:

"Symptoms of SAD may consist of difficulty waking up in the morning, morning sickness, tendency to oversleep and over eat, especially a craving for carbohydrates, which leads to weight gain. Other symptoms include a lack of energy, difficulty concentrating on or completing tasks, and withdrawal from friends, family, and social activities. All of this leads to the depression, pessimistic feelings of hopelessness, and lack of pleasure which characterize a person suffering from this disorder."

Wait... isn't this almost every normal person in the winter? Way to reinforce my hypochondria, Wikipedia.

I so hope my library has this.