A Sleeptracker-AI study of 1+ million nights of sleep shows that during the COVID years of 2020 and 2021, sleepers tracked the sun rather than the clock at the spring DST transition — a marked departure from the pattern observed in 2018 and 2019. With fewer fixed commitments and scheduled obligations, bedtimes shifted naturally with light exposure rather than snapping to the new clock time. Since bedtimes and wake times are directly correlated, the downstream effect on sleep timing was measurable across the full post-transition window.