Patrycja Ściślewska told Polish Press Agency (PAP) that moving clocks twice a year “temporarily desynchronizes” the body’s internal clocks.
While the brain’s master clock in the suprachiasmatic nucleus adapts quickly to light cues, peripheral clocks in organs take longer, leaving people feeling off for days.
She compared the effect to a mild form of jet lag: “A one-hour shift causes the same phenomenon on a smaller scale,” she said.
Recent analyses by Stanford Medicine cited in the interview suggest scrapping clock changes and adopting permanent standard time could bring health gains, including fewer strokes and lower obesity rates.
Ściślewska said morning light is key to re-synchronizing after the switch: outdoor daylight can reach tens of thousands of lux and is rich in blue wavelengths around 480 nm, which more effectively resets the biological clock than indoor lighting.
Public opinion in EU consultations favored ending seasonal changes, with about three-quarters of Polish respondents backing permanent summer time. Ściślewska said that choice is “understandable” because of longer bright evenings, but “from a biological point of view we should keep winter time.”
Keeping summer time year-round would mean very late winter sunrises, forcing many to start work or school in darkness and leaving the body clock chronically out of step with natural light, she said.
Poland will set clocks back from 3 a.m. to 2 a.m. on the night of Oct. 25–26, gaining an hour of sleep, and is due to return to summer time on the last weekend of March.
(jh)
Source: PAP