What Is the Ideal Bedtime to Wake up Rested at 7 Am?
We all think that the more sleep we have, the less tired we'll feel in the morning, but this isn't entirely true. Experts have determined the ideal bedtimes to help you feel fully rested.
Have you ever gone to bed early because you knew you had to wake up early the next day, only to feel more tired in the morning? There's a possibility you might be doing something wrong. Don't assume that sleeping more hours will make you less tired the next day. In reality, it's a little bit more complicated.
Fortunately, a sleep calculator created by Hillarys can help determine when we should go to bed to feel fully rested. Apparently it is more related to sleep cycles than simply sleeping longer. If you wake up at the wrong moment during a sleep cycle, which can result in you feeling more tired, even if you slept longer.
So what exactly are sleep cycles? A sleep cycle lasts roughly 90 minutes. During this time, we go through five stages of sleep: four stages of non-rapid eye moment (NREM) sleep and one final stage of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep. Sleep gets deeper as we move from stage 1 to stage 4 NREM, if you wake up during Stage 4, you will feel more tired. In the REM stage, this is where dreaming occurs. Here are the optimal bedtimes depending on when you need to wake up:
When to go to bed to wake up at 7:00 AM
If you need to wake up at 7:00 AM, you should ideally go to bed at 9:46 PM or 11:16 PM. If you like staying up late and neither of these times work for you, then you can go to bed at 12:46 AM or 2:16 AM. The sleep calculator accounts for the average 14 minutes it takes for people to fall asleep naturally, so you don't need to be in bed exactly at those times.
When to go to bed to wake up at 6:00 AM
To wake up at 6:00 AM, you should go to bed at 8:46 PM, 10:16 PM, or even 11:46 PM. If you prefer staying up late, you can go to bed at 1:16 AM.
When to go to bed to wake up at 8:00 AM
If you don't need to wake up too early for work, here are the best times to go to bed to wake up at 8:00 AM: 10:46 PM, 12:16 AM or 1:46 AM. Alternatively, you can also go to sleep at 3:16 AM, but this would result in a shorter duration of sleep.
The sleep calculator website states: "Good sleep is not just about going to bed early – it's also about waking up at the right time... using a formula based on the body's natural rhythms, the sleep calculator will determine the best time to wake up or go to sleep." The calculator works on the principle that we sleep in about 5 or 6 cycles lasting roughly 90 minutes. Waking up in the middle of a cycle can make it hard to fall back asleep and leave you feeling tired the next day. The goal is to wake up between cycles and feel rested in the morning.