This weekend, in many northern hemisphere countries, times will be set back to normal. Popularly called winter time, but it is our normal standard time. The clocks will go back an hour, and the night from Saturday to Sunday will be an hour longer.
Annoying for parents with small children, as this wakes them up an hour earlier. The upside is that after this weekend, it will be light an hour earlier every day. And that morning light is very beneficial for our health. It makes our internal clock synchronise with the time on our watch. And so we sleep better and wake up more rested, have more energy during the day and our mood improves.
Shifting time is a problem for many people. It takes a long time for them to get used to it properly. The best remedy is to make sure that you spend a lot of time outside, especially in the morning, in the days after the clock has shifted. Then your body will more easily adjust your personal clock to the new time.
Next summer, we should just keep our standard time and stop changing the clock. That will save many people a lot of misery and medical problems by changing the clock twice a year. The very best thing for our health would be if we also choose the right time zone, where we belong given our longitude: the Western European time zone. Then the sun reaches its highest point around 12 o'clock. That is the healthiest for us.
Jan Denneman