Ideal Bedtime?

We all know that sleep is critical to our overall health and well-being, but how do you know what time you should be going to bed every night? Rather than thinking about this in terms of number of hours, sleep specialists talk about the number of “sleep cycles” a person needs per night. A sleep cycle lasts, on average, about 90 minutes, and experts say that adults generally need between four and six sleep cycles each night. This translates to between seven and nine hours of sleep time, factoring in the time it takes to actually fall asleep. Sleep isn’t a one-size-fits-all situation, however. The numbers that get repeated frequently by sleep specialists are averages—not a “correct” answer. Your personal sleep needs may vary considerably from the average, and that’s perfectly fine. The thing to focus on is whether or not you feel rested in the morning, or whether you wake up still feeling sleepy. Keeping a sleep diary for a little while can be very helpful. When you wake up each morning, make a note of how many hours of sleep you got and how well-rested you feel. This can vary, of course, depending on the weather or even what you ate for dinner, but ideally you should start to see a pattern of how many hours of sleep makes you feel the best. With this number and a target time you want to get up in the morning, you can then do some backwards math to figure out what time you should be going to bed the night before. There’s a sleep calculator table on Sleep.com (https://www.sleep.com/sleep-health/sleep-calculator) that runs the numbers for you, too.