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What time should I go to bed to wake up rested?
Count back from your alarm in 90-minute sleep cycles, plus about 15 minutes to fall asleep — six cycles (9 hours) or five (7.5 hours) tends to feel best.
Sleep runs in cycles of roughly 90 minutes, moving through light, deep and REM stages. Waking at the end of a cycle — from light sleep — feels much easier than being dragged out of deep sleep mid-cycle, which is the groggy, "why do I feel worse after more sleep" experience.
So the trick is to count backwards from your alarm in 90-minute blocks, and add about 15 minutes for the time it takes an average adult to actually fall asleep. To wake at 7:00 feeling rested, aim to be in bed by about 21:45 (six cycles, ~9 hours of sleep) or 23:15 (five cycles, ~7.5 hours).
The 90 minutes is an average — your own cycles may run 80 to 100 minutes — so treat the times as a starting point. If you consistently wake groggy at a "correct" time, shift your bedtime by 15 minutes and see if it helps.
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General information, not medical advice. Figures are mainstream reference values; individual needs vary.
