This is going to hurt a lot: Why the 2024 winter time change will be even worse than the summer time one

No reason to rejoice in an extra hour of sleep, the time change of October 2024 will have more serious consequences than the previous one…

Get your watches ready! The time change is imminent. When the little hand reaches 3am on the night of Saturday to Sunday, it will actually be 2am again. While some are already rejoicing an extra hour of sleep, they would do well to think twice: the change to winter time actually impacts our habits and influences our daily lives. And even more than the change to summer time. It would actually cause us to lose hours of sleep!

The deception has been known for a long time. A study by the Liverpool School of Natural Sciences and Psychology (John Moores University) already indicated in 2012 that the time change would actually tend to reduce our sleep time in the long term. We gain an hour of sleep on the night of the fall time change, but the study reveals that in the five days following this time change, our sleep rhythm is disrupted.

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According to the study, “increased sleep fragmentation and sleep latency have a cumulative effect of sleep loss, at least over the next week, if not longer.” “The fall transition is often touted as a gain of an hour of sleep, but there is little evidence of additional sleep that night,” the study further states, indicating that “the cumulative effect “five consecutive days of earlier waking hours after the fall change again suggests a net loss of sleep over the week.”

With this one-hour shift back, we also lose an hour of natural sunlight, which for many French people means arriving at work at night and leaving… at night. Winter time therefore also affects morale, as psychologist Patricia Mozdzan explained on Radio Classique: “We lose an hour of sunlight and therefore the change to winter time can promote seasonal depression associated with the lack of light.” This would affect 15% of the population, with negative effects on our mental state, but also our metabolism.

Increased fatigue and low morale were probably not enough. The lack of visibility on the road is also an often-cited consequence of this winter time change, with this hour of less sunlight at the end of the day or even at the end of the afternoon. Safety road safety has again warned this year about the peak in accidents observed each year after the weekend of the time change.

It is important to remain vigilant, especially since data from the National Interministerial Safety Observatory Road Safety (ONISR) confirm the increase in the number of accidents involving a pedestrian after the change to winter time. These increase by +34.1% during the evening rush hour, between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. It is therefore strongly recommended to wear reflective clothing and to be doubly vigilant on the road, both as a driver and pedestrian.