UK 'should abolish clock changes on health grounds'

On Sunday, the clocks in the UK will be set back by an hour as British Summer Time ends, and some believe the practice of twice-yearly changes could impact our health.

Many will celebrate having an extra hour in bed – perhaps forgetting how they lost an hour at the end of March when the clocks went forward – but the British Sleep Society (BSS) is advocating for the changes to be abolished altogether and for the UK to return to Standard or Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).

The current arrangement of a regular twice-yearly switch of the clocks began in 1972 with the British Summer Time Act.

Sleep experts at the BSS believe that the changes interfere with sleep regulation and circadian rhythms, and it is well established that chronic poor sleep can have a wide range of deleterious consequences including elevated risks for diseases like high blood pressure, diabetes, and depression.

Natural daylight in the morning is crucial for maintaining the alignment of our body clocks with day and night cycles, which is essential for optimal sleep and overall health, according to the organisation.

The enforced changes of clock time to Daylight Saving Time (DST) can "interfere negatively with sleep regulation," according to a position statement published in the Journal of Sleep Research and written by researchers at the Universities of Strathclyde, Surrey, Edinburgh, Warwick and Lincoln, Imperial College London, King's College London, and Northumbria University.

The authors note that the EU asked for feedback from citizens on the use of DST in 2018, with respondents in favour of abolishing it, but so far no action has been taken. The European Parliament voted in favour in 2019, but the European Council has yet to arrive at a position and both have to agree in order to push the change through. In the UK, no progress has been made to act on the EU vote, which preceded Brexit.

"Discussions around abolishing the twice-yearly clock change keep emerging; alarmingly some want to replace it with [DST] all year round," commented Dr Megan Crawford of the Strathclyde Centre for Sleep Health, who is the first author of the paper.

"The unique location and orientation of our UK landmass needs to be considered because permanent DST would over-disadvantage people west and north of London," she added.

The position statement highlights the potential risks of adopting permanent DST, which include depriving the UK population of essential morning light, particularly during the winter months.

"Mornings are the time when our body clocks have the greatest need for light to stay in synch," according to co-author Professor Malcolm von Schantz of Northumbria University.

"At our latitudes, there simply is no spare daylight to save during the winter months and given the choice between natural light in the morning and natural light in the afternoon, the scientific evidence favours light in the morning."

The BSS is urging policymakers to consider the health and wellbeing of the UK population and return to year-round GMT, and to engage in discussions with the Republic of Ireland to avoid a time zone boundary across the island.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Unsplash