The clocks are changing and the days are getting longer. Research suggests we might want to consider what this means for our bedtime.

The arrival of spring often heralds a welcome change after the long, hard winter months. The Sun stays up for longer, the days grow warmer, the first flowers begin to bloom, and the clocks tick forward into daylight savings time to lengthen our evenings. But there is one change that is likely to be less appreciated as we move steadily towards the summer – you start to get less sleep.

Many of us are familiar with the struggle to muster the energy to leave bed in the morning during the winter, choosing instead to hit the snooze button. And scientists say this isn’t surprising.

New research suggests that humans may need more sleep during the dark, cold winter months than they do during the summer. This need seems to even occur in people living in cities, where artificial lights would be expected to interfere with the natural influence of daylight on our sleeping patterns.

“Our study shows that even while living in an urban environment, with just artificial light, humans [experience] seasonal sleep,” says Dieter Kunz, one of the study’s lead authors and head of the clinic of sleep and chronomedicine at St Hedwig Hospital in Berlin, Germany. “I would expect the seasonal variations to be much higher, [if the patients had been] living outside and were only exposed to natural light,” he adds.