How to fix your sleep schedule, step by step

To fix your sleep schedule, pick one wake-up time and keep it every day, weekends too, get outside into daylight within an hour of waking, and move the time you go to bed in small steps of 15 to 30 minutes every day or two, not all at once. Keep evenings dim and screens out of the last hour, and skip long naps while you shift.

The wake-up time does most of the work, because it sets when your eyes first see morning light, and morning light is the strongest signal your body clock gets. Below: why schedules slip, the three kinds of broken schedule and the fix for each, a 14-day plan with real clock times, how long it takes, whether you can fix it in one day, naps, melatonin, and when the schedule isn't really the problem.

What a sleep schedule really is

Your sleep schedule is two things working together. One is your body clock, a group of cells in the brain that runs on a cycle a little longer than 24 hours (about 24 hours and 11 minutes on average, in a 1999 study by Czeisler and colleagues). Every day, light resets it to 24. The other is sleep drive, the pressure to sleep that builds the longer you're awake and drains while you sleep.

You fall asleep easily when both line up: your clock says "night" and you've been awake long enough. A "broken" schedule is when they've drifted apart from the hours your life needs. You lie in bed at 11 p.m. while your clock still says early evening, or you're up at 3 a.m. with plenty of drive left.

Two facts follow from this, and the whole plan is built on them:

• Light moves the clock. Bright light in the morning moves it earlier. Bright light late in the evening and at night moves it later. This was mapped in detail in a 2003 study of how the human clock responds to light at different times of day (Khalsa and colleagues).
• The clock moves slowly. It shifts by roughly an hour a day at most, and moving earlier is usually harder than moving later. That's why jet lag after flying east feels worse, and why a schedule can't be fixed overnight.

Why did my sleep schedule get messed up?

Most schedules slip for ordinary reasons. Knowing yours tells you what to change first.

• Late light. Phones, laptops, TVs and bright rooms at night push the clock later. In one study, reading on a light-emitting e-reader for 4 hours before bed, for 5 nights, delayed the body's release of melatonin and made people sleepier the next morning compared with a paper book (Chang and colleagues, 2015).
• Little morning light. Working from home, a commute in the dark, winter mornings. Without a strong morning signal, the clock drifts later on its own, because it runs a bit long.
• Weekend lie-ins. Sleeping 2 or 3 hours later on Saturday and Sunday is like flying a few time zones west each weekend and back on Monday. Researchers call it social jetlag (Wittmann and colleagues, 2006).
• A break in routine. Holidays, an illness, a new baby, exams, a stretch of night shifts, travel, the clocks changing.
• Late caffeine, alcohol or big meals that make it hard to fall asleep at the time you want, so you stay up later.
• Long naps. A 2-hour afternoon nap spends the sleep drive you need at bedtime.
• Being a natural night owl. Some people's clocks run later by nature. Teens and young adults lean later; most people drift earlier with age. You can still shift, but it takes steadier work and the schedule slips back faster if you stop.

Which kind of broken schedule do you have?

"Fix my sleep schedule" means different things to different people. Find your row, then follow the plan for it below.

The last row matters. If you go to bed and get up at good times but sleep badly in between, moving the times won't help. Our guides on what to do when you can't fall asleep and how to stop waking up at night are where to start.

How to fix your sleep schedule: the 6 steps

Step 1: Work out your target times

Start from the time you need to be up, not the time you'd like to fall asleep. Most adults need 7 or more hours of sleep a night, according to the 2015 consensus of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society. Add 15 to 30 minutes for falling asleep and brief wakes.

So if you need to be up at 7:00 a.m. and you feel best on about 7 hours and 30 minutes, your target is in bed around 11:15 p.m. If 7 hours suits you, around 11:45 p.m. Write the two times down. The wake time is fixed; the bedtime is a guide. You'll go to bed when you're sleepy, as close to it as you can.

Not sure how much sleep you really get? Keep a simple diary for a week: when you got into bed, when you got up, roughly how long you slept. The free sleep quiz works out your average sleep and minutes awake in bed in two minutes.

Step 2: Anchor your wake-up time, every day

Set one alarm for one time, and get out of bed when it goes, 7 days a week. Weekends can be up to 30 minutes later, no more, while you're fixing things. No snooze: put the alarm across the room if you have to.

This is the step people skip because it feels harsh after a short night. It's also the step that works. A fixed wake time does three things at once: it fixes when your morning light arrives, it starts the sleep-drive countdown at the same time every day, and it stops the weekend from undoing the week.

Step 3: Get bright light soon after you wake

Within the first hour, get outside for 15 to 30 minutes: a walk, coffee on the step, the walk to the bus. Outdoor light on a cloudy day is far brighter than a lit room, so indoors by a window is a weaker second best. In a 2013 study, a week of camping with only natural light, no electric light, moved people's body clocks about 2 hours earlier (Wright and colleagues). You don't need to camp; you need more daylight in the morning and less bright light at night.

On dark winter mornings, a light box is an option some people use. Talk to a doctor first if you have eye conditions or bipolar disorder, since bright light can trigger mania in some people.

Step 4: Move your bedtime in small steps

If your clock runs late, don't jump from a 2 a.m. bedtime to 10:30 p.m. tonight. You'll lie awake for hours, which feels like proof it doesn't work. Instead, move the wake-up time 15 to 30 minutes earlier every 1 or 2 days, and let the bedtime follow as you get sleepy earlier. The 14-day plan below shows this with real times.

If your clock runs early, do the reverse: stay up 15 to 30 minutes later every couple of days, with bright light in the evening and dim light early in the morning.

Step 5: Make the evening dim and dull

• Lights down 2 hours before your target bedtime. Lamps instead of ceiling lights, warmer bulbs.
• Screens out of the last hour, or at least dimmed, at arm's length, and nothing that keeps you scrolling.
• A wind-down routine of 30 to 60 minutes: a warm shower, a familiar book, stretching, tomorrow's clothes laid out. The same order each night.
• Bed when sleepy, not when it's time. If you're wide awake at your target bedtime, stay up in dim light until your eyes get heavy.

Step 6: Time caffeine, alcohol, food and exercise

• Caffeine before noon while you're shifting. Caffeine 6 hours before bed still cut sleep by more than an hour in a 2013 study (Drake and colleagues).
• Alcohol early in the evening or not at all. It helps you drop off, then breaks up the second half of the night.
• Meals at regular times, breakfast soon after your new wake time, the last big meal 2 to 3 hours before bed. Regular meal times give your body another daily signal.
• Exercise in the morning or afternoon helps; if hard evening workouts leave you wired, finish 2 to 3 hours before bed.

A 14-day plan to fix a late sleep schedule

This is for the most common case: falling asleep around 2 a.m., waking around 10 a.m., and needing to be up at 7 a.m. Move every time by the same amount if your numbers are different. Go slower (stay 3 days on a step) if a step leaves you lying awake for long.

Rules for the whole two weeks: no naps longer than 20 minutes and none after 2 p.m.; caffeine before noon; if you've been awake in bed for what feels like about 20 minutes and you're frustrated, get up, keep the light dim, and go back when sleepy. You'll be a bit short of sleep on some days. That's expected, and it helps: it makes the earlier bedtime come more easily.

If your clock runs early instead

Sleepy at 8:30 p.m. and wide awake at 4:30 a.m.? Flip the plan. Get bright light in the late afternoon and evening (a walk at 5 or 6 p.m., bright lamps until an hour before bed). Stay up 15 to 30 minutes later every 2 days. On early mornings, keep lights low and wear sunglasses if you go out before about 8 a.m. Early waking can also be a sign of low mood; if you feel flat most days, see a doctor.

If your schedule is all over the place

If you have no "usual" time at all, don't shift anything yet. For one week, set the wake-up time you need and keep it every single day, and go to bed when sleepy. Most of the chaos goes once the morning is fixed. Then use the steps above to fine-tune.

If your schedule is fully flipped

Asleep at 8 a.m., up at 4 p.m.? You have two options. The slow way is the 14-day plan, started from your real times and taken in 30-minute steps; it may take 3 to 4 weeks. The other way is to go later instead: push bedtime 1 to 2 hours later each day around the clock until you reach your target. Some people find going later easier because the clock moves later more readily, but it means living at odd hours for a week and isn't safe if you need to drive or work. If you can, choose the slow way.

Can you fix your sleep schedule in one day?

You can fix your wake-up time in one day. You can't fix your body clock in one day. If you get up at 7 a.m. tomorrow after months of 10 a.m., you'll be tired, and you probably won't fall asleep at 11 p.m. tomorrow night. But if you keep getting up at 7 and get morning light, sleep drive and the clock will catch up.

How fast depends on how far you need to move:

These are rough ranges, not promises: people differ, and natural night owls move earlier more slowly. So "fix my sleep schedule in 3 days" is realistic for a 1-hour slip and not for a 3-hour one.

Should you pull an all-nighter to reset your sleep schedule?

It's the most popular shortcut and it usually backfires. After a night without sleep, most people crash in the afternoon, nap for hours, or fall asleep at 7 p.m., wake at 2 a.m. and end up with a new broken schedule. It's also not safe: in a study of awake time and driving-type tasks, 17 to 19 hours without sleep impaired performance about as much as a blood alcohol level of 0.05% (Williamson and Feyer, 2000). Don't drive after an all-nighter.

A milder version can help: if you overslept on a weekend and can't fall asleep at your usual time on Sunday, get up at your normal time on Monday anyway, and skip the nap. One shorter night builds the drive to fall asleep earlier the next night. That's the useful half of the all-nighter idea, without the all-nighter.

Should you nap while fixing your sleep schedule?

Best is no naps for the first 1 to 2 weeks. Each nap drains the sleep drive you're counting on at bedtime. If you're so sleepy that you'd be unsafe (driving, caring for children, operating machinery), take one nap of 20 minutes or less, before 2 p.m., and set an alarm. Short naps refresh you without leaving much of a dent in the night.

Does melatonin help fix a sleep schedule?

Melatonin is a timing signal more than a sleeping pill. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine's 2015 guideline on body-clock disorders suggests melatonin taken at the right time for people whose clock runs very late (delayed sleep-wake phase disorder), and its 2017 insomnia guideline suggests against melatonin as a treatment for general insomnia. The time you take it matters more than the dose, and taken at the wrong time it can move your clock the wrong way.

In the US, melatonin is sold as a supplement, and the amount in the bottle can differ from the label. Ask a doctor or pharmacist about the dose and timing for you before you start, especially if you take other medicines, are pregnant, or are buying it for a child. Light and a fixed wake time work without it.

How to tell your sleep schedule is fixed

Don't judge by one good night. Judge by a week. Your schedule is back on track when most of these are true:

• You wake within a few minutes of your alarm, or just before it, on most days.
• You get sleepy within about 30 minutes of your target bedtime, without forcing it.
• You fall asleep in roughly 10 to 30 minutes most nights.
• You're alert by mid-morning without needing a second coffee to function.
• Weekends no longer leave you wide awake on Sunday night.

Once that holds for 2 weeks, you can loosen up a little: an occasional late night, a weekend morning an hour later. Keep the morning light and the wake time as the habits you don't bargain with, and the schedule tends to hold.

How to keep your sleep schedule from slipping again

• Guard the wake time. If only one rule survives a busy month, make it this one.
• Keep weekends close. Within 30 to 60 minutes of weekdays. If you're short on sleep, an earlier night beats a later morning. A 2019 study (Depner and colleagues) found that sleeping in on weekends didn't undo the effects of short sleep during the week on the body's handling of sugar.
• Make morning light automatic. Tie it to something you already do: the dog walk, the school run, coffee by the open door.
• Plan for known disruptions. Before the clocks change or a trip, start shifting by 15 minutes a day for 3 or 4 days beforehand.
• Get back on track the first morning after a slip. A late night is fine. A late morning after it is what starts the slide.

Mistakes that keep a sleep schedule broken

• Starting with the bedtime. Lying in bed at 10 p.m. when your clock says 7 p.m. teaches your brain that bed is for being awake. Start with the morning.
• Jumping the whole way at once. A 3-hour move in one night almost always fails. Steps of 15 to 30 minutes stick.
• Lying in "to catch up" after a bad night. It moves the clock later and lowers the next night's sleep drive.
• Bright screens in bed. Late light pushes the clock the wrong way at exactly the wrong time.
• Long afternoon naps. They feel like a fix and cost you the night.
• Giving up on day 4. Days 3 to 5 are often the hardest, because you're short on sleep and the clock hasn't caught up yet. Keep the wake time.

When it isn't the schedule

Sometimes the times are right and you still can't sleep: in bed at 11, awake until 2, or waking at 3 and lying there. That's usually insomnia, not a broken schedule. Moving the times won't fix it; changing what happens in bed will. The main habit methods, used in cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), are getting up when you can't sleep and, for a few weeks, spending only about as long in bed as you actually sleep. Our guide to sleep restriction for insomnia walks through it with clock times. The American College of Physicians recommends CBT-I as the first treatment for chronic insomnia in adults.

Night shifts, jet lag and the clocks changing

These follow the same rules (light moves the clock, about an hour a day at most), with their own timing. In short:

• After night shifts: on the first day off, sleep a short morning (3 to 4 hours), get up, get afternoon light, and go to bed close to your normal night time.
• Jet lag: switch to local meal and sleep times on arrival; after flying east seek morning light, after flying west seek evening light. The CDC's travel guidance suggests allowing about a day per time zone.
• The clocks changing: shift your wake time by 15 minutes a day for 3 or 4 days before the change, and get morning light the first week after.

When to see a doctor

• Your clock runs very late or very early and steady effort for 4 weeks hasn't moved it.
• You're sleepy in the day even with 7 to 9 hours in bed, or you fall asleep without meaning to.
• Someone has heard you snore loudly, stop breathing, gasp or choke.
• You have trouble sleeping 3 or more nights a week for 3 months, and it affects your days.
• Your mood is low or you feel anxious most days, or sleep problems started with a new medicine.
• You work rotating or night shifts and feel unsafe driving home.

A doctor can check for sleep apnea, body-clock disorders and other causes, and can refer you to a sleep clinic or a CBT-I program.

Frequently asked questions

What's the fastest way to fix my sleep schedule?

Get up at your target time tomorrow and every day after, get outside in the morning, keep the evening dim and skip naps. For a 1-hour slip, that often works within a few days. For bigger shifts, moving the wake time 30 minutes every day or two is faster in the end than one big jump that falls apart.

Should I fix my bedtime or wake-up time first?

Wake-up time. You can't make yourself fall asleep, but you can make yourself get up. A fixed wake time brings the bedtime with it within days.

Is it OK to sleep in on weekends?

While you're fixing your schedule, keep weekends within 30 minutes of weekdays. Once it's steady, up to an hour later now and then is fine for most people.

How do I fix my sleep schedule if I can't fall asleep early?

Don't go to bed early. Go to bed when sleepy, keep the early wake-up time, and get morning light. After a few days the sleepiness arrives earlier on its own.

Does the 10-3-2-1-0 rule help?

It's a popular rule of thumb: no caffeine 10 hours before bed, no food or alcohol 3 hours before, no work 2 hours before, no screens 1 hour before, and no snooze. It isn't a clinical method, but each part lines up with standard advice. It leaves out the two biggest levers: a fixed wake time and morning light.

How much sleep do I need?

Adults need 7 or more hours a night, by the 2015 consensus of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society. Some people do best on 7, some on 9. Use how you feel by mid-morning as the guide.

Start tomorrow morning

Pick your wake-up time, set one alarm for it, and plan where your morning light will come from. Tonight, dim the lights two hours before you'd like to be asleep, and go to bed when your eyes get heavy, not before. If you'd like your own numbers first, take the free 2-minute sleep quiz: it works out your sleep, your minutes awake in bed and a starting sleep window. For falling asleep, night waking and the methods behind CBT-I, see all our sleep guides.

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