On Sunday, many Australians will set their clocks forward, effectively losing an hour of sleep as we welcome long summer days. While much has been said and written about the effects of the change on sleep, a new comprehensive analysis from Flinders University suggests the impacts are not long-lasting. Set to be published later this month, researchers compared the sleep patterns of those in states that observe daylight saving compared to those which don’t.
The analysis, which is yet to be peer-reviewed, found no significant evidence that daylight saving was associated with a loss of sleep, or an impact on sleep quality or daytime functioning. Researchers used data from two nationwide questionnaires – a representative population sample of 1000 people and a sample of around 700 people with a clinical diagnosis of insomnia – to collect information from the middle and later stages of daylight saving to determine its connection to sleep. New research suggests the impacts of daylight saving time on sleep are not long-term.
Credit: Matt Davidson; iStock What existing research shows Given the shift to daylight saving time means a loss of one hour of sleep, it’s inevitable there will be some kind of jet lag effect. “The literature says that’s a loss of about 40 minutes of sleep on average, and that’s associated with a higher risk of heart attacks and car accidents in the days that follow because of that loss of sleep,” says Yu Sun Bin, a senior lecturer in sleep epidemi.