Scoring extra daylight hours

I’m not talking about the spring forward time of year when we steal daylight hours from the morning and tack them on to the end of the day. That’s cheating.

No, I mean those late spring and early summer days that stretch far into the evening. My earlier blog entry on the Summer Solstice introduced this topic. Now I want to share the benefits.

These added hours of daylight are so welcome, because many people experience:

Added productivity – Don’t you find you get so much more accomplished during the lengthened daylight hours? Whether it is projects at work or chores in the yard, we just seem to get more done. Can’t speak for everyone, but I’m certainly solar powered.

Guilt-free breaks – That extra productivity earns us relaxing days at the beach and other guilt-free time to play in the daylight.

A break from hours of buzzing fluorescent lights – Instead, natural light floods into workplaces sparing us all from the droning sounds emitted from office lights overhead.

An overall sense of feeling healthier – Chalk it up to all that extra natural vitamin D we’re exposed to or just a psychological boost. Whatever the reason, we feel gooooooood.

Commutes to and from work without blinding oncoming headlights – Let’s face it, daylight drives are less hard on the eyes and the nerves. Extra daylight also means we can see cyclists and pedestrians more easily, giving them a safer route to work.

Later bedtimes – As children, we could safely play outside until later and our bedtimes were pushed further out. Even now as adults, it is funny how you can catch yourself not going to bed until much later than usual. It isn’t necessarily that you’re less tired, but it seems like the sun only just went down and it can’t possibly be so late. That is unless, you’re outside enjoying time on the patio. Out there, the insects signal how late it is and the mosquitoes chase us back indoors.

As the nights begin to get cooler and the edges of darkness gradually creep further into our mornings and evenings, we can reflect on those bonus hours of daylight we reveled in throughout May, June and July.

AWESOME!

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