Waking up when it’s still dark: a winter-morning plan

With the alarm fixed, the sleep calculator counts whole sleep cycles back from it to give a bedtime.

Your alarm against sunrise

The table below shows how far before sunrise your alarm rings in eight cities this winter, with a light plan and a printable checklist.

Pick your city and your alarm to see how far before sunrise it rings on each date. In London on January 1, the sun rises at 8:06 AM, 1 h 6 min after a 7:00 AM alarm; in Edinburgh on January 1, not until 8:44 AM. New York's latest sunrise in the table, 7:20 AM on January 1, comes earlier because it sits much further south.

Sunrise, local clock time, winter 2026–27

Swipe the table sideways for more cities.

Worked out with NOAA's solar equations, which assume 0.83 degrees of atmospheric refraction and are, NOAA says, accurate to within about a minute at these latitudes. City-center points; see the city list. On the 1 November row, New York, Chicago and Toronto are already back on standard time: their clocks went back at 2 AM that morning, before sunrise. The sky starts to lighten a little before sunrise (twilight), so “before sunrise” is dim rather than fully dark.

Up before sunrise? The Lull app's sound fades out over five minutes and ends a minute before your phone's alarm, so the alarm is the first thing you hear.

A morning light plan

The CDC Yellow Book notes that “Light helps to synchronize the internal biologic clock to the environment even in the absence of travel”, and explains that “Exposure to bright light in the morning following the circadian nadir”, the body clock's low point about 2 to 4 hours before you usually wake, moves the clock earlier (source). On a dark morning, that light has to come from the room until the sun is up, and from outside as soon as it is.

For a 7:00 AM alarm, the plan looks like this: room lights on at 7:00 AM, outdoor daylight in the hour to 8:00 AM (our window) or at the first daylight break after that, lights low from 9:15 PM, and bed at 11:15 PM, which the sleep calculator gives as 5 full cycles before the alarm.

The evening half matters as much. NIOSH's training for nurses says “Keep light levels low 1-2 hours before bedtime.” (source), and the AASM's Sleep Education site lists “Limit exposure to bright light in the evenings.” (source). Bright evenings push the body clock later, which makes the dark alarm feel earlier still.

A checklist for dark mornings

Six habits, in the order the day runs, each one either computed for your alarm or taken from a source. The coffee line follows the same rule as our caffeine calculator, because tired dark mornings tend to mean more coffee later in the day. Print it for the fridge; after you compare your own city and alarm above, the checklist and its sunrise table follow them.

Why the mornings get darker after the clocks go back

The clock change gives you a few lighter mornings: in New York the sun rises at 6:26 AM on November 1, the morning the clocks go back. Sunrise then keeps moving later until early January, a couple of weeks past the shortest day. By January 1 it is 7:20 AM in New York and 8:06 AM in London. Our daylight saving time sleep plan covers the clock change itself.

Belgrade and the other cities on Central European Time see the same pattern. Sydney is in the table for contrast: it is summer there, and the sun is up before the example alarm on every date.

Keep the alarm steady, even when it is hard

It is tempting to sleep in on dark weekends. The AASM's advice is the opposite: “Keep a consistent sleep schedule. Get up at the same time every day, even on weekends or during vacations.” (source). A lie-in on Saturday moves your body clock later, so Monday's alarm feels even earlier. If you need more sleep in winter, an earlier bedtime does it without moving the morning, and the social jet lag calculator shows how far your weekend times drift from your workdays.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory — Solar Calculation Details2026 · read on 2026-10-16
2. CDC Yellow Book — Jet Lag Disorder (2026 edition)2025 · read on 2026-10-05
3. CDC/NIOSH — Training for Nurses, Module 6: Prepare for Sleep2020 · read on 2026-10-23
4. American Academy of Sleep Medicine (Sleep Education) — Healthy Sleep Habits2026 · read on 2026-10-23
5. CDC — About Sleep (recommended hours by age)2024 · read on 2026-10-23
6. CDC/NIOSH — Training for Nurses on Shift Work and Long Work Hours, Module 8: Relaxation Techniques2020 · read on 2026-10-05
7. CDC/NIOSH — Training for Nurses, Module 6: Do You Have Symptoms of a Sleep Disorder?2020 · read on 2026-10-05
8. USDA FoodData Central — Beverages, coffee, brewed, prepared with tap water (SR Legacy 171890)2019 · read on 2026-10-05
9. US FDA — Spilling the Beans: How Much Caffeine Is Too Much?2024 · read on 2026-10-05
10. CDC/NIOSH — Training for Nurses, Module 6: Sleep Aids and Stimulants, Caffeine2020 · read on 2026-10-05