Page updated November 14, 2026

Sleep timing guides

These guides put the schedules that move your sleep on the clock: clock changes, dark winter mornings, night shifts, trips across time zones and the flight itself, school nights, weekends, the hour before bed and the last coffee of the day. A Data tag means a table or plan worked out from our figures; a Guide tag means practical steps, timed for you. Every number comes from the same sourced data as the calculators, and each guide links to the calculator that plans your own case.

The Montréal Clock Tower beside the river at sunrise — Guides for the times of year and the schedules that move your sleep. Photo: Michael Vesia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; cropped and darkened, shared under the same license

Clock changes and dark mornings

Chart: four bedtime bars stepping later each night up to the night the clocks go back

Daylight saving time: a 4-night sleep plan

Small bedtime steps, plus clock-change dates to 2028.

Data With the sleep calculator

Chart: winter sunrise times in London and New York against a fixed morning alarm

Dark winter mornings: your alarm vs sunrise

Sunrise in 8 cities, a light plan and a checklist.

Guide With the sleep calculator

Shift work

Chart: four 24-hour strips showing the shift, the daytime sleep and the nap for each start time

12-hour night shifts: 4 sleep schedules

Sleep, nap, caffeine and light times for each start.

Data With the Night-shift sleep planner

Travel

Chart: paired bars of nights to adjust after flying east and flying west, by time zones crossed

Jet lag east vs west: nights to adjust

One table for 1 to 12 time zones, east or west.

Data With the Jet lag planner

Chart: an overnight flight from New York to London as a strip, all of it inside the London night

Sleep on the plane, or stay awake?

Night where you land? Sleep. Day there? Stay awake.

Guide With the Jet lag planner

School nights

Chart: one bar per age group from lights-out to a 7 AM alarm, starting later for teenagers

School-night bedtimes by age

Latest lights-out for every school age, by wake-up time.

Data With the Sleep need by age

Chart: the last hour and a half before lights-out, from screens off to a short routine and a book

Kids' bedtime routine chart

Screens off, tidy-up, teeth, book: timed to lights-out.

Guide With the Sleep need by age

Weekend lie-ins

Chart: five shorter weeknights below a need line, then two longer weekend nights above it

Weekend catch-up sleep

What a lie-in pays back, and how far it moves your clock.

Data With the Sleep debt calculator

Winding down

Chart: the three hours before bed as a strip, ending in the wind-down hour with devices off halfway

One-hour wind-down plan

From the last coffee to devices off, counted back from bed.

Guide With the sleep calculator

The last coffee

Chart: four caffeine curves, one per coffee time, falling toward a bedtime line with a dashed line for the starting figure

How long caffeine stays in your system

What one coffee at 7 AM, noon, 3 or 5 PM leaves at bedtime.

Data With the Caffeine cut-off calculator

Every figure in these guides comes from the methodology and sources table; changes are dated in the changelog.