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How to adjust your sleep when the clocks go back

What it does

At 2am on Sunday 25 October 2026 the clocks go back an hour and British Summer Time ends. You gain an hour on paper, but your body clock doesn't move with the kitchen clock; it shifts a little each day. So keep your usual times by the new clock, and expect a few early mornings.

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  1. Put in your usual lights-off and alarm A normal weeknight, by the old clock.
  2. Choose how to take the hour Gently, over four nights, or all at once on the Sunday.
  3. Keep your usual times by the new clock Expect a few early mornings. By Thursday most people are through.

Sunday. The phone says 7.05am. Your body says 8.05am, and it's right; it hasn't read the news.

The house is dark. The extra hour everyone promised is going on lying there.

By Sunday evening you're yawning at 9.30pm. It feels virtuous. Then you're wide awake at 5.40am on Monday, fifty minutes before the alarm.

None of this means you're bad at sleep. Your body clock is still on summer time. It'll stay there for a few days, whatever the oven says.

By Thursday you're flat by the 4pm meeting.

Why Monday still feels wrong

Your body clock is set by light and by routine, not by the clocks on the wall. When the clocks go back, the sun doesn't move. Your alarm and your bedtime both shift an hour later against it.

So the clock has to move an hour later to catch up. It does that a little each day.

A 2007 study tracked 50 people for eight weeks around each change. Their sleep timing adjusted readily to the autumn one. It was the spring change they failed to adjust to.

Direction matters, though. Light early in the morning pulls the clock earlier; light in the evening pushes it later.

This is the one week of the year when you want "later". That flips some of the usual advice.

What to do in the week after the clocks go back

  1. Hold your usual bedtime by the new clock. On Sunday evening you'll feel sleepy an hour early, because your body thinks 9.30pm is 10.30pm. Stay up until your normal time. That hour is where the adjustment happens. Go up early and you've simply stayed on summer time.
  2. Keep the alarm where it is, and the lights low if you wake before it. You'll wake early for a few mornings. Lying in a dim room until the alarm is fine. So is reading by a low lamp. The big light and a bright phone at 5.40am are a morning signal in the wrong direction.
  3. Don't let the dark evening send you to bed at nine. It's dark by teatime now, and the body reads darkness as night. Keep the lamps on and the evening ordinary until your wind-down. Normal evening light nudges the clock later. This week, that's what you want.
  4. Don't bank on the extra hour. A 2013 review found little evidence that anyone gets extra sleep on the night itself. Five early mornings can add up to a net loss across the week. So the usual rules hold: steady times, and no late Saturday night to "use" the hour.

After that week the general rules come back: a fixed wake-up time matters more than bedtime, and morning daylight keeps the clock steady through the winter.

What the England data shows

This is the kinder of the two changes, as the 2007 study found. A 2025 study in The BMJ followed 683,809 people in England across the clock changes from 2008 to 2019.

The week after the autumn change had slightly fewer GP and hospital records for sleep disorders, anxiety, depression and heart disease. The spring change showed no clear effect either way.

You'll also see advice to shift bedtime 15 minutes later each night beforehand. It's logical. We couldn't find a trial of it for the autumn change, and most people are through a one-hour shift within the week without.

If you're still waking at 5.30am in mid-November, the clock change isn't the cause. The NHS advice for sleep that stays broken is to speak to your GP.

The hour is yours either way: spend it awake on Sunday with the lamp low, or save it for the week by keeping your times.

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Questions

Why do people wake up too early after the clocks go back?

Because the body clock is still on summer time. Its usual 6.30am is now 5.30am by the new clock, so it wakes when it was going to anyway. Keeping the lights low until the alarm helps it shift.

Do the clocks going back cause sleep problems?

Rarely, and briefly. In the 2007 study, sleep timing adjusted to the autumn change but failed to adjust to the spring one. The England study found slightly fewer sleep-disorder records in the week after the autumn change, and no clear spring effect.

Should you change your sleep schedule before the clocks go back?

Not for the autumn change. We couldn't find a trial of shifting bedtime beforehand, and most people adjust within the week by keeping their usual times. Save the effort for the spring.

Sources

  1. When do the clocks change?, GOV.UK, 2026
  2. Insomnia, NHS, 2024
  3. The British Sleep Society position statement on Daylight Saving Time in the UK, Journal of Sleep Research, 2024
  4. Acute effects of daylight saving time clock changes on mental and physical health in England: population based retrospective cohort study, The BMJ, 2025
  5. The impact of daylight saving time on sleep and related behaviours, Sleep Medicine Reviews, 2013
  6. The human circadian clock's seasonal adjustment is disrupted by daylight saving time, Current Biology, 2007

This article is general information, not medical advice. If sleep problems last more than a few weeks, speak to your GP.

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