Adnkronos (Adnkronos) – A month before daylight saving time, shortly after 18 p.m., you can already feel that long shadow falling prematurely. "Until a few days ago, at this time, people were getting ready for an afternoon swim. Those were the light-hearted moments of the pre-evening: shorts, the wait for the cool air, a table outside for a pizza or ice cream eaten without looking at the clock.
Today, at 6:30 PM, evening is already approaching. And thoughts immediately turn to the end of October: what will it be like at this hour with daylight saving time? It will already be dark. The tables will be cleared indoors. Another summer will be gone. And so the usual media frenzy begins again: the time change is being discussed again weeks in advance, as if it were a disaster waiting to happen.
The usual specter of "mini jet lag" has been revived to foster a sense of wonder that no longer amazes anyone; especially in the age of transcontinental travel, where entire time zones can be crossed in half a day without anyone making a clinical or existential drama out of it. But no one cares about that.
We then have to ask ourselves: are we really sure that the problem lies in those sixty minutes that will change from legal to solar between October 24 and 25, 2026? The truth is that the brain, the hypothalamus, and melatonin, this time, have as much to do with it as a grain of sand in the hourglass of passing time." This is the analysis for Adnkronos Salute by immunologist Mauro Minelli, professor of Clinical Nutrition at the Lum Giuseppe Degennaro University.
"Our unease isn't born from a miniature time zone," the expert reflects. "It stems from the fact that summer is a magnificent lie we all choose to believe: a parenthesis where we put our thoughts on hold and pretend the world out there doesn't exist. Then the sun begins to set earlier, and with the darkness comes reality. The wars that never stopped return, the cost of living and fuel skyrocket, the crazed climate that continues to send unheard signals. The daily reports of horror and violence that leave us breathless return. The burden of a daily life that is often frightening returns."
"That turning back of the clocks isn't a biological disorder: it's the chime that announces the end of recess," Minelli emphasizes. "We're pouring into one less hour of daylight the bitterness of our own setback, of being forced back into the confines of our homes and the problems of our time. Perhaps," the doctor concludes, "rather than blaming the clocks or inventing syndromes that don't exist, we should have the courage to admit it: it's not daylight saving time that scares us. It's the darkness that awaits us when the summer lights go out."
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