Nothing to be happy about with an extra hour of sleep, the time change in 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 3 a.m. on the night of Saturday to Sunday, it will actually be 2 a.m. again. If some people are already happy about the 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 switch to summer time. It would even cause you to lose hours of sleep in reality!
The deception has been known for a long time. A study from 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.
According to this study, “increased sleep fragmentation and sleep latency have a cumulative effect of sleep loss, at least for the following week, if not longer.” “The fall transition is often presented as a gain of an hour of sleep, but there is little evidence of additional sleep that night,” writes the study, which indicates that “the cumulative effect of five consecutive days of earlier rising times after the fall change again suggests a net loss of sleep over the week.”
With this one hour delay, we also lose an hour of natural sunlight, which means for many French people, arriving at work at night and leaving… at night. Winter time therefore also influences morale, as psychologist Patricia Mozdzan explained on Classical Radio : “We lose an hour of sunlight and therefore the transition to winter time can promote seasonal depression associated with lack of light”. This affects 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. Road Safety alerted again this year on the accident peak observed each year after the time change weekend.
It is important to remain vigilant, especially as data from the National Interministerial Road Safety Observatory (ONISR) confirms the increase in the number of accidents involving a pedestrian after the winter time change. These increase by +34.1% during the evening rush hour, i.e. between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. It is therefore strongly recommended to wear reflective clothing and to be extra vigilant on the road, both as a driver and a pedestrian.