I Just Learned Why The Clocks Really Go Back, And I Had No Idea

Alarm clockAlthough an extra hour in bed might sound like a great idea in winter, some research suggests that the clock change (which occurred on 26 October at 2am this year) may not actually translate to 60 minutes more sleep.Nope – it seems we only get 33 extra minutes of kip at the start, and continue to lose sleep as the season progresses.And that’s for the “easier” process of the clocks going back. When the clocks go forward in Spring, car accidents and heart attacks rise.This is partly why groups such as the European Parliament have backed a proposal to scrap daylight saving time altogether.The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents have called for the same to happen in the UK multiple times.But why do the clocks go back in the first place? After all, the practice didn’t exist until 1916.Daylight saving time was popularised by William WillettBenjamin Franklin seems to have been the first person to propose daylight saving time in 1784. It had other advocates after that, too.But it took the advocacy of a Kent builder called William Willett to build enough momentum to put it into motion. Apparently, the worker became interested in the idea because, while riding home on his horse, he noticed drawn curtains on a sunny morning as people slept through a summer dawn. This bothered him so much, he self-funded a pamphlet called The Waste Of Daylight. Originally, Willett wanted the clocks to adjust by 80 minutes per season in four instalments rather than an hour at a time. His advocacy eventually caught the attention of MP Robert Pearce, who promoted the idea in the House of Commons. That did not take at first, but over time, some countries warmed to the idea. A week after Willett’s death in 1916, Germany implemented the change, with the UK following weeks later.There have been some experiments and changes sinceDuring the Second World War, the UK temporarily adopted British Double Summer Time, which was two hours ahead of Greenwich Mean Time instead of the usual one.This ended when the war did. But in 1968 and 1971, the British government experimented with putting the clocks forward, but not back. It was decided that assessing the advantages and disadvantages of this experiment was too tricky, so it stopped after two years of implementation.Related...Wake Up At 3AM And Can't Get Back To Sleep? You Might Have This ConditionI Made A Walking Change Ahead Of Clocks Going Back, And My Sleep Is Already Better8 Signs Your Body Clock Has Been Knocked Completely Off Rhythm

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