Free Health Calculator

Sleep Calculator — Best Bedtime by Sleep Cycles

Find the ideal time to fall asleep or wake up, based on 90-minute sleep cycles, so you wake up feeling refreshed instead of groggy.

Calculate My Sleep Time ↓

When do you want to plan around?

Based on 90-minute sleep cycles plus an average 15 minutes to fall asleep.

Calories & Macros

My best bedtime

6 sleep cycles · 9h sleep

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How to sleep better

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Keep a consistent schedule

Going to bed and waking up at roughly the same time every day, including weekends, helps stabilise your circadian rhythm. Large swings between weekday and weekend sleep schedules — sometimes called "social jet lag" — can leave you feeling tired even after enough total hours of sleep.

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Limit screens before bed

Blue light from phones and screens can suppress melatonin production, the hormone that signals your body it's time to sleep. Dimming screens or switching to night mode an hour before bed, or simply putting devices away, helps your body wind down naturally.

Watch your caffeine cutoff

Caffeine has a half-life of roughly 5-6 hours, meaning a coffee at 4pm can still have a meaningful amount active in your system at 10pm. Most sleep guidance suggests stopping caffeine intake at least 8-10 hours before your target bedtime.

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Keep your room cool

A cooler bedroom, generally recommended around 18-20°C (65-68°F), supports the natural drop in core body temperature that helps trigger and maintain sleep. A room that's too warm is one of the more common, fixable causes of restless or interrupted sleep.

How this calculator works, and its limits

This calculator is built around the concept of sleep cycles — the roughly 90-minute pattern your brain moves through repeatedly during the night, cycling through light sleep, deep sleep, and REM sleep. Waking up at the end of a complete cycle, rather than in the middle of one (particularly mid-deep-sleep), is widely reported to feel less groggy, even at the same total number of hours slept. The calculator works backward or forward from your target time in blocks of 90 minutes, adding a standard 15-minute allowance for the time it typically takes to actually fall asleep after getting into bed.

This is a population-average estimate, not a personal biological measurement. Actual sleep cycle length varies somewhat by individual, age, and even night to night, and factors like stress, alcohol, or an irregular sleep schedule can all shift the pattern. Think of the calculator's suggested times as a useful planning tool for setting an alarm or bedtime, not a precise guarantee — if you consistently wake up groggy at a "cycle-aligned" time, your personal cycle length may simply run a bit longer or shorter than the 90-minute average.

Frequently asked questions about sleep cycles

A full sleep cycle — moving through light sleep, deep sleep, and REM — takes roughly 90 minutes on average for most adults. Waking up at the end of a cycle, rather than in the middle of one, generally feels less groggy since you're not interrupted mid-deep-sleep.
Most adults need 5-6 complete cycles per night, equal to about 7.5-9 hours of sleep, which lines up with general sleep guidance for adults. Fewer than 4 cycles (roughly 6 hours) is generally considered insufficient for most adults on a regular, ongoing basis.
Many people report feeling less groggy waking up at a natural break between cycles rather than mid-cycle, particularly out of deep sleep, though individual variation is significant and this isn't a universally guaranteed effect for everyone.
It's an estimate based on population averages, not a direct measurement of your personal sleep cycles, which vary somewhat by individual, age, and even night to night. It's a useful planning tool for setting a bedtime or alarm, not a precise biological measurement.

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