At 2 a.m. on Sunday, March 26, daylight saving time began. We set our clocks forward one hour, and the change has pushed sunsets later into the evening hours and sunrises later into the morning hours. The cost is that "springing forward" temporarily disrupted the sleep.
But there's a lot of confusion about daylight saving time.
The first thing to know: Yes, it begins in the spring, just as the increase in daylight hours starts to become noticeable.
Daylight saving time started as an energy conservation trick during World War I and became a national standard in the 1960s. The idea is to shift the number of daylight hours we get into the evening. So if the sun sets at 8 pm instead of 7 pm, we'd presumably spend less time with the lights on in our homes at night, saving on electricity.
It also means that you're less likely to sleep through daylight hours in the morning.