Your body-clock will have to adjust as well as your devices (Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
The days are getting shorter, and British Summer Time (BST) will soon make way for good old Greenwich Mean Time (GMT).
You’ll get an extra hour of bed as a result of clocks going back this weekend, but there will also be a noticeable change in when the sun goes up and down.
Many people say this affects their mood – hello Seasonal Depression – which contributes to a debate over whether this disruption is worthwhile.
When do the clocks go back in 2024?
The clocks next change this Sunday, October 27, when they go back one hour at 2am.
So when you go to bed tonight, make sure you’ve adjusted your clock in anticipation or have a device that changes automatically.
You can also expect to get an extra hour of sleep if your body lets you, or wake up an hour ‘earlier’ if your body-clock is particularly strong.
The clocks will go forward again on Sunday, March 30, 2025, at 1am.
Turning the clocks back an hour in autumn means that we get more sunlight in the morning (Picture: Isabel Pavia/Getty Images)
Does this mean it is lighter or darker in the morning?
When the clocks go back, Daylight Saving Time will then be at an end.
This means the sun rises an hour earlier than the day before, and sunset will come one hour earlier in the evening.
Why do we change the clocks?
Turning the clocks back allows us to have extra sunlight in the morning at the expense of the same amount in the evening.
The idea was first seriously proposed in the 1890s by British-born New Zealand scientist George Vernon Hudson, whose passion for collecting insects after work inspired him to propose daylight saving time.
He suggested a two-hour shift to his government but the proposal was rejected.
The idea took off in the UK after businessman William Willett (whose great-great-grandson is Coldplay’s Chris Martin) began promoting the idea starting in 1907.
He had been inspired by the sight of houses with their blinds down on sunny mornings near his home in Kent, realising people were ‘wasting’ daylight.
His proposal was backed by two MPs, including a young Winston Churchill, but nothing was done until the First World War.
The Edwardian builder William Willet proposed that the clocks go forward in spring and back in winter (Picture: Rebecca Bundschuh/Getty Images/iStockphoto)
The turning point came when Germany moved clocks forward to conserve energy in the spring of 1916, which allowed both soldiers and civilians to use less resources such as coal.
Not long after, Parliament passed Britain’s Summer Time Act of 1916, which turned clocks back in the autumn and forward again in spring.
Which countries change their clocks?
Clocks-changing isn’t just a UK thing – more than 70 countries around the globe do it.
Most European countries observe European summertime (Daylight Saving) – changing their clocks at the end of March and again at the end of October.
The only European countries that don’t are Iceland, Turkey, Belarus and Russia. …read more
Source:: Metro
