France switches to summer time overnight from Saturday to Sunday. It will be necessary to advance its clocks by one hour, from 3 o’clock in the morning. A disruption to our sleep cycle.
At 2 a.m. Sunday, it will be 3 a.m. The traditional transition to summer time takes place tonight, as every year. If this passage is synonymous with one hour more sunshine, it also goes hand in hand with less sleep.
For doctors, the impact on the biological clock is very real. As neurobiologist and sleep specialist Joëlle Adrien explained to BFMTV, this change from winter time to summer time “increases the sleep debt”.
“You should know that we all have one hour less sleep for working days, that we try to recover on weekends. There, we will not be able to”, detailed the specialist.
A gradual adaptation
For Antoine Metlaine, specialist in sleep pathologies, “the impact is not major”, but it will still be visible “in the first week”. “But the biological clock will eventually adapt,” he assured our antenna.
What can be done to facilitate this transition? For Joëlle Adrien, a progressive adaptation method must be adopted:
“You have to change a quarter of an hour every day [son heure de coucher, NDLR], four days before. As a result, on Sunday we don’t realize it”.
François Duforez, sleep doctor, advises him to avoid received ideas. “The mistake we can make is to think that by anticipating and trying to go to bed an hour earlier, we will make up for this possible deficit”, explained the doctor to BFMTV.
“On paper” this may seem like a good idea, but “in practice” “you have to let the biological clock catch up”.
This time change was introduced in 1976 to save energy. Often pointed out as being obsolete, a draft directive, adopted in March 2019 by the European Parliament, should lead to the abolition of the time change in 2021.
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the decision has been postponed, and is currently off the agenda.