What time should you go to bed?

Pick the time you need to wake up and we’ll show you the bedtimes that line up with full 90-minute sleep cycles — so your alarm catches you in light sleep, not the middle of deep sleep.

Each page below works backward from your wake-up time, leaving about 15 minutes to fall asleep, and gives you four options from 3 to 6 complete cycles. For most adults, 5 cycles (7.5 hours) is the sweet spot.

• Wake up at 5:00 AM — for athletes, the 5 AM club, and early-shift workers
• Wake up at 5:30 AM — for serious early risers and pre-work gym-goers
• Wake up at 6:00 AM — the classic early-shift and commuter alarm
• Wake up at 6:15 AM — a calmer buffer over a 6 AM start
• Wake up at 6:30 AM — the quintessential commuter wake-up
• Wake up at 6:45 AM — the “just enough time” alarm
• Wake up at 7:00 AM — the default for office workers and students
• Wake up at 7:15 AM — a relaxed mainstream start with slack built in
• Wake up at 7:30 AM — for remote and flexible schedules
• Wake up at 7:45 AM — a slow, generous morning
• Wake up at 8:00 AM — for freelancers and night-owl chronotypes
• Wake up at 8:30 AM — a genuinely late, disciplined start
• Wake up at 9:00 AM — for extreme night owls and delayed rhythms

Need a time that isn’t listed?

Use the full sleep cycle calculator to compute bedtimes for any wake-up time, or work the other way and find the best wake-up times for a bedtime you already have.

Want the science first?

Read sleep cycles explained to understand why timing your wake-up between cycles beats simply sleeping longer, or browse all our sleep guides and free tools.