How does the clock change affect the human body?

The Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, by its Resolution No. 509 of 13.95.96, established the rule – every year, change the time to the last Sunday in March at 3:00 – 1 hour ahead, and on the last Sunday of October at 4:00 – 1 hour ago. This month, residents of Ukraine will need to move their clocks forward 1 hour – this will happen on March 29th.

While the debate over the economic feasibility of such a time shift has subsided, disagreements about its possible impact on the human body remain unresolved.

Some people say that time transfer does not have any significant impact on the human body. Others report short-term sleep disturbances, lowering of mood and deterioration in general well-being.

German scientists from the Institute of Medical Psychology in Munich have found that some of the negative effects of the clock change are associated with an imbalance between a person's internal biological clock and real time.

The internal biological clock is very important for human health: it is thanks to it that the body adjusts the production of hormones, stabilizes body temperature, including determining when a person is sleeping and when he is awake. Therefore, the change of clocks, like other changes in the schedule of a person's day, has an impact on the body.

According to the results of a study conducted by chronobiologist Til Renneberg, as a result of the transition to winter / summer time, a person can experience fatigue, various diseases become aggravated. This also applies to the performance of – an organism that does not have time to react so quickly to a change in the schedule of its life cannot ensure the effective work of a person – hence fatigue appears, and efficiency decreases.

Til Rennenberg believes that such a discrepancy between the work of the body's internal clock and real time can be harmful to human health.

But Nikolai Polishchuk, a chronomedician from the NMC "Resonance" has a completely different opinion on this matter. He considers the change of clocks to be a favorable phenomenon, which trains the metabolism, gives the body the opportunity to adjust to the change in the length of the day.

The scientist believes that from the very beginning of his existence, man was guided by the sun – got up with its sunrise and fell asleep with sunset. Such a genetic rhythm must be maintained in every possible way, and changing the clock is a great way to maintain this rhythm.

Nikolay Polishchuk also claims that the translation of time is not capable of either healing or causing illness. And the short-term discomfort experienced by people in connection with the transition to a new time can be easily eliminated. All it takes is going to bed and waking up an hour or two earlier.

Temporary inconveniences are connected with the fact that a person simply does not get enough sleep for 1-3 days, which is the reason for irritability, fatigue and decreased efficiency. But this is quite normal and only a temporary phenomenon, which in no way worsens human health.

In the article we presented two absolutely opposite opinions of experts in this field. Which of them is right is hard to say. But we know one thing for sure – time will be changed, and we will have to put up with it. We think it would not be superfluous to heed the advice of Nikolai Polishchuk and still not argue with nature, but try to adapt to such changes as quickly as possible. After all, sleep is extremely important for health, especially in autumn, when the likelihood of developing various diseases already increases.