New Delhi: A team of researchers have determined that moving the clocks ahead by one hour in spring, and an hour backwards in autumns significantly disrupts sleep durations. The researchers analysed activity from 11,800 people across the UK over the shifts in timings between 2013 and 2015. The researchers discovered that people get less sleep for a week irrespective of weather the clocks are moved backwards or forwards, challenging the conventional notion that people tend to lose an hour of sleep when the clocks lose an hour in spring, but gain an extra hour when the clocks jump forward in autumn.
A paper describing the findings has been published in The Journal of Sleep Research. One of the authors of the study, Melanie de Lange says, “With a growing number of countries – including the US and those in the EU – moving to end the clock changes, the practise of daylight saving time is the focus of much current debate. Our study adds to the growing body of evidence that the shift forward to daylight saving time in Spring is associated with an acute loss of sleep, which has implications for the health of the UK population. It is crucial that any future review of the UK’s daylight saving time policy considers the effects of the clock changes on sleep and health.”
What is Daylight Saving Time?
Daylight Saving Time (DST) is the practice across US and Europe to move the clocks ahead in the warmer months to gain advantage of the extra sunlight in the late evenings, with the underlying proposition being a boost in economic activities, reducing energy consumption in terms of artificial lighting, and the lifestyle benefits associated with increased exposure to sunlight. The clocks are returned to the standard time in the winter months. The regions close to the equator do not have to use DST because of little variation in the sunrise and sunset timings over the year.
When does Daylight Saving Time end in 2024?
Most countries opt to reset the clock at 2:00 hours, when an hour that never happened goes by. In 2024, for UK and most of Europe, the daylight saving time, colloquially known as ‘Summer Time’ ended on Sunday, 27 October, 2024. In the UK it ended at 2:00 hours Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), while in Europe it ended at 2:00 hours Central European Time (CET). In the US, the switch is scheduled for 3 November, 2024 at 2:00 hours local time, depending on whichever timezone is used. The timezones themselves will switch from Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific Daylight Times to Standard Times.
