How to beat the blues and ill health caused by the clocks changing
Spare a thought this morning for the staff at the Irish Museum of Time in Waterford who have to put more than 600 clocks forward by an hour. I hope you remembered to put your own clocks forward. These days it happens automatically with our smartphones so it’s easier. In the good old days, the way to remember which way the clocks changed was: “Spring forward, fall back”.
An important question in recent years has been why do we still change our clocks twice a year?
Some credit the idea to William Willett, who in 1907 proposed putting the clocks forward for the summer months. He was an avid golfer who didn’t like cutting his round of golf short in the summer because of dusk coming on. When “daylight saving”, as it was called, was introduced in the US it was noted that golf ball and baseball sales rocketed because people had more time to play those sports.
During World War I, Germany began putting its clocks forward to conserve energy, because there would be less use of artificial light in the morning. The UK and Ireland soon followed for the same reason.
Other possible reasons were to give us more daylight in autumn mornings when farmers were milking their cows and when children were walking to school. In the spring it meant more daylight after you finished work.
However, those reasons don’t really apply any more. A US study found that electricity use actually goes up by 4pc during daylight saving. The vast majority don’t want to change the clocks. An EU-wide survey in 2018 involving 4.6 million people revealed that 84pc wanted to stop springing forward or falling back. In Ireland it was even more, with 88pc of us wanting the changes abolished. In 2019 MEPs voted to end the practice in response to the survey, but nothing has happened.
One issue with this kind of survey is it’s possible that those against something are more likely to respond, but given the number of people involved this is unlikely. And us humans are easily distracted and so forget about the issue until the next time.
Only about a third of countries change their clocks twice a year. In those that don’t, nothing too dramatic happens. The sky doesn’t fall in. In Europe, the countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Iceland, Russia and Turkey do not change their clocks.
Most parts of the US and Canada do, apart from Hawaii and Arizona. Egypt is the only African nation to change its clocks. In Australia, New South Wales changes its clocks but Queensland doesn’t. What all this tells us is there’s really no rhyme or reason as to which countries do and which don’t.
A confusing aspect at least for me is there’s a few weeks where the east coast of the US is four hours behind us instead of the usual five, because the clocks change slightly ahead of us. Again, for no reason.
Last week I missed an important Zoom meeting with scientists in Boston because I thought it was a five-hour time difference.
More importantly, all the evidence points to what have been called “acute increases in adverse health consequences” from changing the clocks. A huge study carried out in the US and Sweden concluded that people with chronic immune conditions did worse following the change in the clocks.
There was evidence that proteins that cause inflammation, such as an important one called TNF, were elevated in the blood in the days after the clocks changed. That increase in inflammatory factors is interesting. It means our bodies are irritated by the change, and this increase in inflammation decreases our mood and could worsen the symptoms of inflammatory diseases like arthritis.
The study was remarkable as it involved an analysis of the health records of more than 150 million US people using a database called the IBM Watson Health MarketScan, and the healthcare records of nine million Swedish people. These large numbers mean that the conclusions being drawn are likely to be correct.
Overall, the study found an increased risk of heart attacks, stroke and mental-health problems as well as immune-related diseases such as ulcerative colitis. The increased risk was deemed modest but significant. There was, however, a decreased risk of picking up an infection.
All this tells us something is going on in the immune system. It’s slightly more active, probably because of the stress of the time shift. That’s fine if you need to fight an infection but not so good if you have an inflammatory disease or if you have heart disease as inflammation is bad for your heart.
Another important study showed the potential for car crashes goes up just after the clocks go forward. The risk of fatal traffic accidents is increased by 6pc. Not a huge increase but still significant. So be extra careful driving this weekend.
And even though one idea behind changing the clocks was to help our mental health by giving us more hours of daylight, the opposite turns out to be true. Changing the clocks has been shown to exacerbate depression, anxiety and substance abuse.
One reason for this when the clocks move forward is we’re getting less exposure to sunlight in the morning. Morning sunlight is especially good at synchronising our internal body clock. If we don’t get enough of it, we can go off kilter and that can disturb our sleep, which in turn affects our mood.
We make melatonin at a set time every day, in the evening. It’s the body’s natural sleeping pill, and if you don’t make it at the right time, you’ll have trouble sleeping. This happens when you have jet lag, but also when the clocks change. And a study on schoolchildren found that after the clocks change, they are sleepier and less attentive in class.
What can you do to avoid these ill effects of having moved your clock forward? After a few days you will readjust.
But right now, your best bet is to get outdoors early in the morning. Even if the sun isn’t shining this will speed up the readjustment. Until you go through it all over again in October. So make sure you get up with the lark, since wonderful spring is at last truly here.