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Morning Routines

3 min.

21 February 2023

How to adapt your sleep schedule as the clocks go forward

#daylight saving #clocks going forward

The clocks going forward every spring can signal the start of summertime for many, and promises longer days, milder evenings and summer holidays. But for some, daylight savings can affect a person's sleep pattern. The clocks going forward can be problematic for people who are light sleepers and those who are frequently unable to get enough sleep to feel well rested. 

Here we will discuss the best ways to adapt your sleep schedule for British Summer Time (BST), and ways in which you can generally improve your sleep health, in order to consistently wake up your best.

When does daylight saving begin, and what time do clocks go forward?

Daylight saving time in 2023 in the United Kingdom will begin at 1:00am on Sunday 26th March, which is when British Summer Time officially begins.

How can we adapt our schedule to the clocks going forward?

Especially for those of us that are already inconsistent sleepers, the clocks going forward can have a detrimental impact on our circadian rhythm, and can mean we have less sleep, with studies suggesting sleep fragmentation can last for a week or even longer after the change.

There are a number of ways we can prepare ourselves though, in order to make sure we reduce the impact of this change in our sleep pattern as possible.

Incrementally change your bedtime

One of the best ways to retain optimum sleep wellness is to have a regular and consistent bedtime, with our daily routine helping to regulate our circadian rhythms. With this in mind, the clocks changing is one way this can be knocked off track, literally overnight. 

To counter this, one way to reduce the effect is to incrementally change your bedtime in the lead up to the clocks going forward. While a one hour deficit is enough to impact our sleep, altering our sleep schedule by 15 minute increments for four days before the change may help. This should be a small enough daily change to have little impact on our sleep schedule, and a big enough combined impact to reduce the effects of the clocks going forward.

Don’t sleep in on the Sunday morning

Although it will be the weekend and it’s easy to convince yourself to sleep in to make up for the ‘lost hour’, it’s best to set your alarm and get up at your usual time. Sleeping in will simply put off your body's adjustment to the clocks going forward, and it's better to tackle the change as soon as possible, especially if it means being slightly more tired on a Sunday, a day where we typically have less commitments. 

Reduce blue light, alcohol and caffeine before bed 

While this is good advice to increase our quality of sleep in general, it is even more important to follow this guidance the night before the clocks change, in order to have the best quality sleep, and mitigate the effects of an hour’s sleep deficit. 

Despite being a prevalent habit, using screens that emit blue light before sleep has been seen to have a negative impact on our sleep, and alcohol and caffeine have both been proven to cause a lower quality sleep, with abstinence from alcohol increasing how well rested we feel when we wake up. Reducing our screen time, caffeine and alcohol intake should help us to wake up feeling refreshed.

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