If sleep is one of the most natural and essential activities we do, why aren’t the ins and outs as easy as dropping our head onto our pillow and shutting our eyes? Here’s how to set your internal clock for better sleep, starting with figuring out your ideal time to wake up.
Everything from our hectic schedules to stress to certain health issues make getting enough quality sleep complicated and challenging for many of us. Thankfully, there are ways to manage your sleep routine to combat insomnia and other sleep troubles, and determining your best wake-up time may play an important role in this process.
Here’s what sleep experts have to say about homing in on your ideal schedule to get better sleep, beginning tonight.
Are You an Early Bird, Night Owl, or in Between?
While there’s no universal “best” or “right” time to wake up each day, you can figure out an approximate time frame that works well for your needs. Doing so as part of practicing healthy sleep habits overall can pave the way to better energy levels, moods, and health.
Your ideal wake-up time will vary based on your body’s natural clock, or circadian rhythms. Circadian rhythms are changes in your brain and body over 24-hour periods. They regulate your sleep-wake cycle, and while they’re partly genetic, they respond to your environment and behaviors a lot, too.
Roughly 20 to 25 percent of adults are early or late risers. “Early birds generally prefer waking up earlier while night owls tend to stay up later,” Jay Olson, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow with the psychology department at McGill University in Montreal, tells DailyOM. A majority of people (about 60 percent) fall somewhere in the middle.
In addition to personal preference, age also may play a role in whether you prefer waking up early or late. Babies sleep quite a bit, but in shorter bursts throughout the day and night until they are out of the newborn period and their sleep routine becomes more consolidated; teens naturally drift toward both later bedtimes and later wake-up times, and even the season you were born in may impact when you prefer to wake up. Research shows that after age 60, more people shift toward early rising. The idea that older adults need less sleep, however, seems to be a myth.
Another study, published in the journal Sleep Medicine in 2022, showed that “early to bed, early to rise” habits boost work productivity for people who work early in the day, while turning in later and rising later is helpful for work productivity later in the day. There is some research that supports that earlier risers may be happier than their night-owl friends, while night owls score as more intelligent, but there are many variables that still need to be studied around these questions. More important than anything else for your overall quality of life is setting a time to wake up that allows for adequate sleep.
So consider when you need to be the most productive when arranging your sleep schedule.
Interested in learning more? Check out Sleep Fix For Longevity
How Much Sleep Do You Need?
If you have the freedom to do so, choose a wake-up time that allows you to get sufficient sleep, which is seven to nine hours per night for most adults. If you typically turn in at 1 a.m., for example, aim to wake up between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m.
Individual sleep needs vary, and you’ll know whether you need more or less than the average based on how you feel. (You could even test this on days when you don’t have to be up at a certain time. Go to bed when you’re sleepy, then see when you naturally wake up.) You may also find that seven to eight hours typically suits you, but that you need more sleep at certain times — such as around your period, if you menstruate, or during especially stressful times.
“The ideal time to go to sleep is when you feel tired, and the best time to wake up is when you feel rested,” says Olson. So the key is allowing your body to feel sleepy at an ideal time, and then actually going to bed then.
Unfortunately, school, home, and work responsibilities require most of us to be up and at ’em at a particular time. Consider when you need to wake up, then go back seven to nine hours to determine your ideal bedtime, and build in enough time to wind down ahead of that hour.
Advantages of Getting Enough Sleep
The benefits of getting enough snooze time are immense. Research has shown that adequate, restful sleep may help manage or prevent serious illnesses, like heart disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and mood disorders. Getting enough sleep is even linked with lower rates of dementia and less loneliness, while not enough rest can lead to a host of negative results, even changing your genes.
And if you think that sleeping less means you’ll get more done because of the added wakeful time, think again. A study published in the journal Sleep in 2018 looked at the sleep habits and productivity of over 1,000 adults ages 22 to 60, and found that people who sleep less or get poor-quality sleep accomplish less during the day compared to their better-rested counterparts.
Changing Your Rhythms to Meet Your Wake-Up Time
If you need to change your circadian rhythms, you can do so gradually with the right efforts. “The circadian rhythm is subject to change when a person does night shifts or travels to another place at a different time zone,” Dr. Po-Chang Hsu, medical content expert at SleepingOcean.com, tells DailyOM. “The body’s internal clock can be readjusted gradually by, for example, sleeping earlier or later for 30 minutes every night.”
And setting the stage for those changes by adjusting things like caffeine intake and anything non-relaxing before bed is key.
In other words, if you’re a night owl who wishes to be an early bird, or a morning person who needs to stay up late for a period of time, guide your body to the change in modest steps versus sudden leaps. By working with your body and tending to your sleep needs, you can set yourself up to consistently wake up with ease.
Preparing Your Body for Sleep
Let’s say you need to wake up at 6 a.m. to get ready for work. In order to wake up when you wish to with ease, you’ll need to feel sleepy by 10 p.m. or 11 p.m. That means no stimulants like caffeine after 4 p.m., at the latest. Research shows that caffeine can reduce sleep by an hour, if you consume it six hours before bedtime.
You should also avoid screen time shortly before bed. Light suppresses the sleepiness hormone melatonin, says Olson, who researches the effects of light exposure on circadian rhythms. “Light exposure can shift our circadian rhythms so that we naturally fall asleep later and wake up later, making it harder to go to bed early the next night as well,” he adds.
While guidelines vary, Olson suggests avoiding screens — especially bright devices like smartphones — close to your face for at least 30 minutes and up to two hours before going to sleep. It may also help to dim your device’s brightness. Using an e-reader that emits gentler light than smartphones and tablets, versus a backlit e-reader, could be a helpful option, too.
Exercising or socializing late in the day can also make it difficult for your body to feel sleepy, according to Olson, so do your best to prioritize R&R near your bedtime. Your sleep quality may not be affected by stimulating activities, but your cardiovascular system — or even your thoughts — may stay revved up, making it tougher to relax and doze off.
The Importance of a Sleep Routine
Regardless of your natural disposition, creating a healthy sleep routine is probably the most important way to wake up refreshed.
Consistency is essential for two main reasons, says Olson, including your circadian rhythms, which we can only reasonably shift for an hour or two per day. “If sleep and wake times vary a lot, they will rarely synchronize with the body clock, so we are less likely to sleep or wake at our body’s ‘ideal’ circadian time,” he adds. And that means less sleep or poorer sleep quality.
The Value of Sleep Hygiene
The second reason for establishing a sleep routine involves sleep hygiene. “The more consistent our sleep environment [is] every night, the easier it is to fall asleep,” Olson explains. “The body learns to associate cues such as going to bed, closing the blinds, and turning off the lights with going to sleep.”
One of those cues, he adds, is time. Going to bed and rising at similar times each day helps train your body to feel tired and awake at those times.
And just because the weekend rolls around doesn’t mean your sleep routine should fall to the wayside. Maintaining consistent sleeping and waking times “allows the body to get used to starting to produce melatonin … before going to bed at a specific time, and hormones that neutralize it, such as cortisol, in the morning,” Dr. Rosmy Barrios, a medical advisor for Health Reporter, tells DailyOM.
Waking Up More Easily
If you struggle to wake up feeling refreshed because of poor habits that get in the way of your sleep, cultivating better ones should help. As you work on doing so, or if schedule limitations get in the way regardless, consider exposing yourself to bright light upon waking.
“Light exposure is one of the strongest ways to shift the circadian rhythm,” says Olson, who has researched these effects. “Light in the morning makes us go to bed earlier; light at night makes us stay up later.” Meanwhile, be sure to prioritize darkness leading up to and during sleep. If your sleep environment isn’t dark enough, wear a sleep mask.
To avoid the jolt of an alarm, which can interfere with your body’s rhythms, you could set your lights to a timer or use a sunrise alarm, which uses light to gently wake you.
You might also wake up more easily if you do sleep meditations before bed. A study published in PLOS One in October 2021 showed that using a calming meditation app led to improved sleep and mental health in the majority of people surveyed. You could also try reading a relaxing novel or listening to soft, soothing music. Most any activity that relaxes you near bedtime is worth embracing, whether that’s gentle stretching, journaling, or whatever other sleep routines work for you.
Keep in mind that difficulty waking up or sleeping well in general can also stem from conditions like depression and sleep apnea. Tending to your health needs can go far when that’s the case.
Can Napping Help?
If you end up short on sleep, consider a nap. Even 10-minute naps increase alertness, says Olson. Just don’t go overboard. “Naps longer than around 25 minutes may cause ‘sleep inertia,’ which keeps you feeling tired for a while after waking up,” he adds. “So if you have to drive or do an important task after, shoot for a shorter nap.”
Meanwhile, avoid napping too close to bedtime or you may have trouble falling asleep and struggle to wake up. “The best time to take a nap is when you feel tired,” Olson says, “which for many people is around the midafternoon dip after lunch.”
That notion of napping or full-on sleeping when you’re tired seems to be the moral of the story, as far as your best wake-up times go. Just make sure your habits don’t stand in the way.
