Spring Forward! See the Light!
Yup it’s that weekend of the year again – time to change your clocks! But which way round do they go!?
If ever you are in doubt – always remember the little expression ‘Spring Forward – Fall Back’!
The clocks go forward this weekend. To be precise, it is 1am on Sunday morning that officially the hour is ‘lost’ and becomes 2am.
Great news, eh! More daylight in the evenings…… but we also get an hour less in bed on Sunday morning. And for anyone who works on a Sunday morning, that’s perhaps not such great news!
The change from normal time, or Greenwich Meantime, to what is now known as British Summer Time, has been taking place since 1916. It all started in wartime Germany by the enemy’s lead. Basically, to give farmers more daylight in the morning to work in their fields, the clocks went back!
So why do we continue to do this and does it actually do us any good? Well, in addition to the perceived business benefits of daylight saving,  lighter evenings are also shown to enhance physical and mental health as  symptoms such as ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder’  can start to fade away with the longer daylight hours. There is also evidence to show a reduction in road traffic accidents and crime during the ‘summer’ months.
But is there a downside to messing around with the hour? OK so you may be disorientated on Sunday – the risk of being late for work, or missing the start of something important as you are not in the zone! But that’s not all – some research actually suggests that there is a negative impact on the body of putting clocks forward – and that on the Monday or Tuesday following the start of BST there is an increase in the risk of heart attacks….
The debate about whether we should never turn the clock back continues and many people think we should stay an hour ahead of GMT all year round. Are there business benefits of always being in the same time zone as the rest of Europe? – might make it simpler when scheduling conference calls if nothing else!
And, hay, what about the potential boost for our tourism industry – visitor attractions might well be inclined to stay open longer…  and we could create a summer all year round feel perhaps?
Then there is the day to day health and well being of everyone – we can all be a bit couch-potato-ey (is that a word!) on dark winter evenings – people are certainly more likely to get out and exercise or attend sporting events while the light is on!
Whatever your thoughts, there has been a lot of debate in parliament over the years as to whether to keep clocks an hour ahead of GMT all year round……..and to coin an expression – only time will tell! However, the current system looks like it is here to stay. At least for the time being!
So before we Fall Back again – get out there, see the light, and make the most of the next few months… and let’s hope this British Summer is a good one for us all…
