Look, I’ll be the first to admit that whenever there’s a clock change, it takes me an embarrassingly long time to figure out how exactly it’s going to impact my day-to-day life.

Am I waking up an hour earlier? Later? Is it pushing my kids’ bedtime back? Or technically bringing it forward? Am I losing sleep? Gaining sleep? It gets me in a muddle.

This next clock change, which happens on Sunday 29 March 2026, will see the clocks ‘spring forward’ – heralding the start of British Summer Time (BST).

In short: you will lose one hour of sleep, as 1am (which is when the clocks officially go back) becomes 2am.

This means if you naturally wake up at 7am BST, your body thinks it’s technically still 6am.

Basically, it’ll feel quite early and it may still be dark when you wake up – compared to now, when it’s typically light at 7am. (Although it won’t be too long until the new 7am wakeup time will begin in daylight.)

As for bedtime, if you hit the hay at 10pm, this is actually more like 9pm (old time).

Overall you might feel a bit more tired (because you’ve lost an hour of sleep), but over the course of the week, your body should adjust to the new schedule.

If you want to get a head start and help your body clock gradually get used to the new routine, you can shift your bedtime 10-15 minutes earlier each night for three or four nights before the clock change.

This clock change can feel particularly tricky for parents as kids typically get up earlier – so that 6am start is now more like 5am. Ouch.

That said, bedtime is earlier too, so that’s a small win. You might even feel like you’re getting more of your evenings back.

And it also means you get more light in the evenings, making that post-school park trip or dinner picnic in the garden a lot easier to say ‘yes’ to.

Due to the sleep disruption, kids might be a bit (or in some cases, a lot) crankier than usual, but within a week or so, you should find everyone settling into the new rhythm. (Here’s hoping, anyway.)

If they are struggling to drift off during the lighter evenings, blackout curtains might help to trick their brains into thinking it’s later than it is.

If you take medication at a certain time of day, experts broadly suggest sticking to the same schedule. This means if you take medication at 7pm (GMT), you should continue to take medication at 7pm (BST).

Wing Tang, head of professional standards at the Royal Pharmaceutical Society, told Which? they wouldn’t typically expect the clocks going forward to have a great impact on people taking regular medicines. But if you’re worried, you can double check with your GP or pharmacist.

You’ll also need to change the clocks on some of your appliances manually – while smartphones, smart TVs, newer radios etc., can update themselves, your oven clock, car clock (if it’s an older car) and older central heating controls will need a tweak.