BC time change on November 1: What dark winter mornings do to sleep

A note from Vanessa: When I first learned BC was moving to permanent daylight time, I was mildly pleased we’d no longer be changing the clocks. I’d heard good things about longer evening light for safety, though I bristled at the idea of making the fiction of daylight saving time permanent rather than abolishing it. Graeme’s article shows the other side: what darker mornings cost us. I’m always interested in how the context we live in shapes our mental health, and this is a good example. I asked Graeme Thompson, RCC, who provides cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) across British Columbia, if I could share his article on what BC’s new permanent clock means for sleep this winter. It first appeared on BC CBT-I. I’ve added Nelson to his table of sunrise times, and a few notes for those of us in the Kootenays after it.

On November 1, 2026, most of Canada will move its clocks back an hour and gain a dark morning’s worth of light. British Columbia will not. The province stays on permanent Pacific time, which means the BC time change in November is a non-event on the calendar and a real event at your bedroom window: sunrise in Vancouver on November 2 arrives at 8:02 a.m., and by the winter solstice it slides past 9. This post covers what later morning light does to sleep and to insomnia, what the research says, and what you can do about it.

BC does not change clocks on November 1, and mornings stay dark

Under 2019 legislation brought into force in 2026, BC moved to permanent Pacific time (UTC-7) when clocks sprang forward on March 8. That is the same clock setting the province used all summer. There is no “fall back” this year. The clocks you set in March are the clocks you keep.

The practical effect is that BC now sits one hour ahead of Washington, Oregon and California from November to March. Alberta also made daylight time permanent this year (Bill 31, UTC-6), so BC is an hour behind Alberta all year. It also means the sun comes up an hour later, by the clock, than it did in every winter you have lived here before.

Total daylight does not change. The length of the day depends on latitude and the date, not on where the clock hands sit. What changes is where that daylight falls. Under permanent Pacific time, more of it lands in the late afternoon, and less of it lands before work, school, and the first hours of your waking day. The table shows sunrise times for six BC cities under the new clock, with the old fall-back equivalent in brackets. These are calculated figures, so check your own town against a local sunrise calculator.

Sunrise times under BC’s permanent clock (a.m.)

By the solstice, sunset in Vancouver is 5:15 p.m., in Kelowna 4:58 p.m., in Nelson 4:52 p.m., and in Prince George 4:50 p.m. Under the old clock each of those would be an hour earlier.

Notes for Nelson and the Kootenays

Added by Vanessa Deverell

I’ve added Nelson to Graeme’s table. Because we sit farther east than the other cities, our sun rises a little earlier by the clock.

Those are the times the sun crosses a flat horizon. In Nelson, the sun always has to clear the mountains before it reaches us, and in winter, when it rises low and climbs slowly, that can be well after sunrise. You don’t need to wait for it, though. Outdoor daylight, even in shade or under cloud, is much brighter than indoor lighting, so time outside soon after you get up gives your body clock a far stronger morning signal than staying in. Direct sun is brighter still, so on clear days it’s worth getting out into it once it clears the mountains.

If you have friends or family in the East Kootenay, their clocks now differ from ours. In August, the Regional District of East Kootenay, which includes Cranbrook, voted to stay on Mountain time year-round, the same as Alberta, which puts them an hour ahead of Nelson all winter.

The body clock runs on light, and morning light does the most work

Your circadian rhythm is a roughly 24-hour internal cycle, and it is not exactly 24 hours. Light is the main thing that resets it each day. Light in the morning pulls the clock earlier and anchors it. Light in the evening pushes it later. Researchers call these external cues zeitgebers, and in a 2019 review of the daylight saving debate, Roenneberg and colleagues argued that the mismatch between the clock on the wall and the sun is what the body notices, a gap sometimes called social jetlag.

So the question for a BC winter is not “do I get enough light.” It is “when does the light that sets my clock arrive.” If you are awake and moving at 7:30 a.m. and the sun is still 90 minutes from rising, your body clock gets less of the early cue it uses to stay put. Some people drift later without noticing. They feel sleepy at the usual hour less reliably, they find the morning harder, and they start to sleep in on days off.

Societies with little winter daylight show a later clock, not less sleep

The nearest natural experiment is northern Scandinavia, where winter daylight is scarce. BC sits at roughly 49 to 50° N, well south of that, so treat this as a pattern to know about, not a forecast. The findings are consistent in direction and modest in size.

In a comparison of Ghana (5° N) and northern Norway (69° N), Friborg and colleagues found that in the dark season, Norwegians rose and went to bed later, had more trouble falling asleep, and reported more fatigue and low mood. Sleep duration and overall sleep quality did not differ. The much larger Tromsø study, with more than 21,000 adults aged 40 and over, found little seasonal change in sleep overall. Winter insomnia symptoms were more common in men only, sleep onset took slightly longer, and total sleep time did not change. The authors suggested that artificial light may buffer the effect. A separate Tromsø analysis by Johnsen and colleagues likewise found no major seasonal shift in self-reported sleep-wake rhythms or chronotypes.

Office workers in Kiruna, Sweden (67.9° N), told a clearer story. In a small study of 32 indoor day workers, Lowden and colleagues found sleep onset about 39 minutes later in winter, and mid-sleep about 25 minutes later on workdays and 46 minutes later on days off. Weekly sleep was 12 minutes shorter. More morning light was linked to earlier mid-sleep, and more evening light to later.

The consistent finding is a delay in timing, with sleep duration mostly intact. That matters for how you read your own winter. A later body clock is common and expected. It is not, by itself, insomnia.

A later body clock, a circadian disorder and insomnia disorder are three different problems

Many people will notice some version of the same thing in November: harder to wake, sleepy in the evening at the wrong time, flat in the morning. That is a mild delay, and it usually settles with consistent light and wake times.

A circadian rhythm disorder is different. It means your sleep window is persistently out of step with the schedule you need, and it is a diagnosis, not a mood of the season. Insomnia disorder is different again. It means difficulty falling or staying asleep, three nights or more a week for three months or longer, with daytime consequences, and it is treated with CBT-I.

Dark mornings are a fair precipitant. In the 3P model that clinicians use, a stressor starts a bad stretch, and behaviour keeps it going. The perpetuating behaviours are the ones that feel reasonable in the dark: lying in until it is light, going to bed earlier to “catch up,” and watching the clock through a long night. Conditioned arousal is the leading explanatory model for why that pattern holds, and it remains a model, not settled fact.

Early-morning waking usually reflects a clock that has moved earlier, not later, so going to bed earlier makes it worse. If you wake at 3 or 4 a.m. and cannot return to sleep, see Graeme’s post on 3 a.m. waking.

The dark morning trap is staying in bed until the light arrives

When it is black outside at 7:30, the pull to stay under the covers is strong. Do not give in to it as a policy. Sleeping in on dark mornings delays the clock further, shortens the pressure that builds toward the next night, and teaches the brain that bed is where wakefulness happens.

The fix is a fixed rise time, seven days a week, set to the time your life needs you up. It does not depend on sunrise. This is the same anchor used in sleep restriction therapy, and it works for the same reason: a consistent wake time is the strongest regular signal you can give your body clock. Trying to force sleep on a bad night tends to backfire, a pattern described in trying harder is the problem.

1. Pick a rise time you can hold on weekends too, within about an hour.
2. Get out of bed at that time even if the night was poor.
3. Turn on bright indoor light as soon as you are up, and leave it on while you get ready.
4. Go outside for a short walk within the first hour or two if you can, even when the sun is not yet over the horizon.
5. Keep evening light low in the last hour or two before bed.

A light box is a supporting layer, not the treatment

Light therapy is the best-studied tool for shifting a winter clock. In a trial in winter depression, Terman and colleagues found that morning light worked better than evening light. A light box can help some people hold an earlier clock through a dark winter, particularly when used soon after waking. The CMAJ analysis discussed below puts seasonal affective disorder at 1 to 3% of Canadians, with up to 15% having milder seasonal symptoms, and names bright morning light as the evidence-based treatment. The full detail, including choosing a lamp, is in Graeme’s post on SAD lamps and insomnia.

A lamp supports CBT-I. It does not replace it. If you have a history of bipolar disorder, eye conditions, or take medications that increase light sensitivity, check with your physician first. Melatonin is a related question with a longer answer, covered in his post on melatonin.

The evidence on clock policy and health is thinner than the headlines

Medical and scientific bodies have taken positions, and here is where each stands. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine opposed seasonal clock changes in 2020 and, in a 2024 statement, called permanent standard time the optimal choice for health and safety. The Canadian Sleep Society took the same position in 2023, warning that under permanent daylight time many Canadians would wake in the dark. A 2026 CMAJ analysis by Lam and colleagues concluded that the preponderance of health evidence favours permanent standard time. It also sets out what to do if permanent daylight time is kept: better lighting, later school starts, flexible work hours, brighter morning light indoors, and bright light therapy for individuals. The authors name people with insomnia among those who may be more affected, and note that permanent standard time has its own cost, since an earlier summer dawn could wake some people too early. A BCMJ editorial raised concerns about BC’s choice. Researchers at SFU and UBC have also questioned the move, as reported by CBC.

The provincial government’s position is that it ended twice-yearly clock changes, which many British Columbians wanted, and kept the later evening light that comes with summer-style time. Supporters of the choice point to evening daylight for activity and safety. Those are policy arguments with trade-offs on both sides, and how to weigh them is a value judgment, not a sleep-science question.

The evidence itself is more limited than the debate suggests. A 2026 systematic review in the European Journal of Epidemiology by Steponenaite and colleagues found the studies of daylight saving time and health mixed and limited. The CMAJ authors say much of their evidence is correlational or quasi-experimental and that not every review agrees on the harms. And no trial has tested permanent daylight time in people with insomnia disorder. Nobody can tell you from data that this change will make your insomnia worse. What can be said is that the direction of the circadian science, morning light matters for timing, is consistent with a later body clock for some people.

When dark mornings are not the whole story

If you have had trouble sleeping for three months or more, or if the trouble began before this time change, the clock is not the cause, and a lamp will not fix it. A practical test is whether things improve once you hold a fixed rise time and morning light for two to three weeks. If they do not, an insomnia assessment is the next step.

One practical aside: calendars on some phones, laptops and booking systems may show appointment times an hour off after November 1. If you have a session booked, confirm the time with your provider rather than trusting the calendar entry.