Are you an early bird or a night owl? Well, about 60% of people are in the middle with only slight preferences either way.
But we live in an early bird society, as most work happens during the day. And a 2024 Gallup poll found that 57% of adults report needing more sleep.
Whether you start a new school or a new job, your sleep schedule could be very different than your current one. So how do you change it?
“If you wanna shift your schedule, slower is better,” said Dr. Brian Chen, a sleep specialist at the Cleveland Clinic Sleep Disorders Center. “Just plan ahead for if you know something like, school is about to start in this many weeks and I’m falling asleep at this time, but I have to be falling asleep four hours earlier. Well, you gotta start shifting four weeks ahead of time.”
If you shift your sleep schedule cold turkey, you put yourself at risk for sleep deprivation.
“There are issues in terms of your heart, in terms of your brain, cognitive deficits later on in life as you’re older and probably insomnia, long-term, chronic insomnia,” explained Chen.
The NIH reports that 86.5% of older adults with insomnia report at least two other chronic illnesses, including cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and AFib. Also, older adults with chronic pain and insomnia experienced worse pain more often. So how do you know how much sleep you need?
“Everybody is a little bit different,” said Chen.
Your baseline depends on your age. Six to 12-year-olds need between nine and 12 hours of sleep, teenagers need eight to 10 hours of sleep, and adults need seven to nine hours of sleep.
Chen says start by tracking how much sleep you get naturally:
“This is usually something you do on vacation. So on vacation, when do you go to bed, when do you wake up?” he told Ivanhoe.
From there, you can create a healthy shift in your schedule, little by little, over several weeks.
If you think just sleeping in on the weekends can offset your sleep debt, you’re wrong.
The Sleep Foundation says that while that may help you feel less sleepy, it doesn’t take away the increased risk of hypertension, Type 2 diabetes, and Alzheimer’s.
If you have serious concerns about your sleep, Chen says you should speak to a sleep specialist.