When do the clocks go back in 2026? On Sunday 25 October, when 2am becomes 1am and the UK returns to Greenwich Mean Time. We gain an hour, but it does not always turn into extra sleep, and the bigger change is that the evenings get dark far earlier.
I notice it every year. The Monday after, I leave the house in daylight and come home in the dark, and my body takes a few days to agree with the clock on the wall. This is what I have learned about easing into it.
When do the clocks go back in 2026?
On the official government page, the date for 2026 is 25 October. The clocks go back one hour at 2am on the last Sunday in October, and they went forward on 29 March. While the clocks are ahead we are on British Summer Time, and once they go back we are on Greenwich Mean Time until spring.
Most phones and computers change by themselves overnight. Ovens, car dashboards and the odd wall clock will need you to do it by hand, so it is worth a quick walk round the house on Sunday morning.
On the Saturday night itself there is nothing special to do. Go to bed at your usual time, let the phone change the clock for you, and treat Sunday as an ordinary morning with a little more daylight in it.
Do you really get an extra hour of sleep?
Not quite, as it turns out. One study that tracked people's sleep with activity monitors found they slept just over half an hour more on the night the clocks went back, not a full hour, and that the effect faded quickly. I find that reassuring in a quiet way. If the extra hour does not turn into a long lie in, nothing has gone wrong. Our bodies simply keep their own rhythm for a while.
How do you use the extra hour well?
It is tempting to spend it all in bed. The Sleep Charity suggests the opposite, which is to avoid extra-long lie-ins and get up at around your usual time.
So I treat the extra hour as time for the morning. A slow breakfast, a proper walk and a call to someone I have been meaning to ring. If you are curious about the other end of the day, I wrote about how to wake up feeling refreshed on dark autumn mornings, and a lot of it applies here too.
How do you keep evenings steady as the afternoons darken?
When it is dark by late afternoon, the evening can feel much longer than it is. I can get sleepy at five and then wired at eleven. I find the answer is not to fight the dark but to give the evening a shape, so that the lights, the food and the screens all say the same thing: the day is winding down.
This is the heart of what I call nightcare, a few small habits that tell you it is time to settle. None of them is difficult, and you do not need to do them all.
Six steps for the week the clocks change
- Shift gently beforehand. The Sleep Charity suggests going to bed and getting up 10 to 15 minutes later each day in the week before. It is a small enough step that you may barely notice it.
- Keep your wake time on Sunday. Get up at around your usual time by the new clock, and avoid a long lie-in.
- Go outside in the morning. The same source suggests at least 20 minutes outdoors each morning, even when it is cloudy.
- Have an earlier, lighter wind down. If you want a way to bring the evening to a close, getting an early night is easier when you start the routine before you feel tired.
- Put the phone down sooner. The Sleep Charity advises cutting screens an hour before bed, and if that is hard, how to stop doomscrolling in bed might help.
- Make the last drink a calm one. The same advice is to switch to caffeine free drinks after mid afternoon. A calm drink in the evening can become a small signal that the day is done.
What if it still feels off after a few days?
Give it a little time. The same study found the change in sleep was short lived, so a slightly foggy Monday is nothing to worry about. Your body is simply catching up with the clock.
The dark evenings are a good reason to build a small ritual. I made Sleep Toniq because I wanted something calm to reach for at the end of the day. It has chamomile, honey, apple cider vinegar and orange, and it promotes rest and relaxation, which suits an evening that has come round an hour earlier.
Header photo by Mohammad Ebesh on Unsplash
Sources
- GOV.UK, When do the clocks change?
- de Lange MA, Richmond RC, Birnie K, Shapland CY, Tilling K, Davies NM. The effects of daylight saving time clock changes on accelerometer-measured sleep duration in the UK Biobank. Journal of Sleep Research. Summary from the University of Bristol: Daylight saving time clock changes have substantial, but short-lived effect on how much sleep we get
- The Sleep Charity, Prepare for the October clock change and protect your sleep this winter
