Saturday, October 26, 2024

FALL BACK TONIGHT

For immediate release: Daylight saving time clock changes have substantial, but short-lived effect on how much sleep we get




University of Bristol




With the clocks going back this weekend, a new study has found that moving the clocks one hour forward in Spring and one hour back in Autumn has a substantial, but short-lived effect on sleep duration.

The University of Bristol-led study, published in the Journal of Sleep Research today [25 October], analysed sleep data from activity monitors worn by 11,800 people over the Spring and Autumn clock changes in 2013-2015. The study is unique in that it analysed objectively-measured sleep in a large number of people in the UK who are signed up to
UK Biobank

It is commonly thought that people lose an hour of sleep in Spring (when the clocks go forward an hour) and gain hour of sleep in Autumn (when the clocks go back an hour). Previous research also suggests that people get less sleep for around a week after both clock changes as they find it difficult to adapt to the new time.

Whilst this new study did find that people slept around an hour less on the Sunday of the Spring clock change than the previous and subsequent Sundays, they did not (or could not) take advantage of the full extra hour of sleep in Autumn. In fact, they only slept for just over half an hour more than the surrounding Sundays.

The study also found that the effect on sleep for the rest of the week differed depending on gender. Men tended to sleep more on the weekdays after both clock changes, although this was more pronounced in Spring. However, this pattern of catch-up sleep was not seen for women. They often slept for less on the weekdays after the clock changes than before. This could be because women experience higher levels of insomnia and sleep difficulties, and that these problems are exacerbated by the clock changes.

Although short-lived, the sleep loss seen over the Spring clock change in this study has serious consequences for health, as just one night of sleep loss has been associated with a decline in mental and physical health. Also, research has found that the clock changes themselves are associated with an increase in heart attacks, strokes, road traffic accidents and depression.

Melanie de Lange, a Wellcome -funded epidemiology PhD student in the Bristol Medical School: Population Health Sciences (PHS) and MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit, and study author, said: “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.”

Paper

The effects of daylight saving time clock changes on accelerometer-measured sleep duration in the UK Biobank by Melanie A de Lange, Rebecca C Richmond, Kate Birnie, Chin Yang Shapland, Kate Tilling & Neil M Davies in Journal of Sleep Research [open access]

Peer reviewed: Yes

Type of evidence: Experimental study

Subject: People

Note to editors:

To interview Melanie de Lange, please contact Joanne Fryer [Mon to Wed], email joanne.fryer@bristol.ac.uk, mobile: +44 (0)7747 768805 or Caroline Clancy-Cottle [Wed to Fri], email caroline.clancy@bristol.ac.uk, mobile: +44 (0)7776 170238 in the  University of Bristol Media and PR Team.

About the MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit (IEU)
The MRC Integrative Epidemiology Unit (IEU) at the University of Bristol conducts some of the UK's most advanced population health science research. It uses genetics, population data and experimental interventions to look for the underlying causes of chronic disease. The unit exploits the latest advances in genetic and epigenetic technologies. They develop new analytic methods to improve our understanding of how our family background behaviours and genes interact to influence health outcomes.

About UK Biobank
UK Biobank is a large-scale biomedical database and research resource containing de-identified genetic, lifestyle and health information and biological samples from half a million UK participants. It is the most comprehensive and widely-used dataset of its kind, and is globally accessible to approved researchers who are undertaking health-related research that is in the public interest, whether they are from academic, commercial, government or charitable settings. UK Biobank is helping to advance modern medicine and enable better understanding of the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of a wide range of serious and life-threatening illnesses – including cancer, heart disease and stroke. Over 30,000 researchers from more than 90 countries are registered to use UK Biobank and more than 10,000 peer-reviewed papers have been published as a result. UK Biobank is supported by Wellcome and the Medical Research Council, as well as the British Heart Foundation, Cancer Research UK, the UK Government’s National Institute for Health and Care Research and Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, Griffin Catalyst and Schmidt Futures.

Follow UK Biobank: @uk_biobank, FacebookLinkedInInstagram

About Wellcome  

Wellcome supports science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone. We support discovery research into life, health and wellbeing, and we’re taking on three worldwide health challenges: mental health, infectious disease and climate and health. 

Issued by the University of Bristol Media and PR Team

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