Standard time returns, here's when the hands move back 60 minutes and what changes

On the night between Saturday 24 and Sunday 25 October, Italians will say goodbye to daylight saving time until March 2027. At 3 am, the clock hands will move back 60 minutes. The transition will allow you to gain an hour of sleep, but it will not be painless: the negative effects could concern various areas, from health to energy consumption. Precisely for this reason, for years now, both in the Italian and European Parliaments, the idea of ​​abolishing the double annual time change has been under consideration.

The possible effects

The transition from summer time to solar time will have concrete effects on the lives of citizens. From Sunday, in fact, the sun will set an hour earlier and the days will become shorter, but there will be 60 minutes more light in the morning, with evident effects on the organization of their days by Italians. The time update will occur automatically for all digital devices, while for analogue devices it will be necessary to proceed manually.

The impact of the time change on health

In the short term, the time change could cause temporary disturbances such as drowsiness and irritability, explains Luigi Ferini-Strambi, director of the Sleep Medicine Center at the Irccs San Raffaele hospital in Milan. In fact, according to experts, the transition from summer time to solar time has negative repercussions on health: «It has direct effects on the well-being of people and the community», observes Alessandro Miani, president of the Italian Society of Environmental Medicine (Sima), which together with Consumerismo No Profit has started a collection of signatures to ask for permanent summer time.

Miani underlines, in fact, that «the circadian rhythmicity is altered, i.e. the biological clock of our organism which, in the absence of signals from the external environment, completes its cycle in approximately 24 hours. Sleep problems are also recorded in a significant portion of the population, with negative consequences on concentration and mood", and therefore also on academic performance, efficiency at work and personal relationships.

The Sima president then adds that some studies have revealed the existence of a correlation between the transition from summer time to standard time and the increase in road and workplace accidents, while "a research conducted in Australia even found an increase in suicides in the first weeks of the time change". There is also no shortage of security risks. With solar time, according to Miani, the hours of evening darkness are lengthening, those in which thefts, robberies and other crimes tend to be concentrated.