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Thursday March 28, 2024

Sleep calculator tells you exactly what time you should be in bed

By Web Desk
March 22, 2017

A new sleep calculator claims to be able to tell you the exact minute you need to enter the land of nod to ensure you wake up refreshed and ready to take on the world.

The tool rebuffs the idea that getting an early night in is the best way to achieve the optimum amount of shut-eye, suggesting instead that all we need to really know is when to latch on to the start of a new sleep cycle so we wake up at the end of one - and avoid that groggy feeling.

Sleep for an average adult occurs in 90-minute cycles, meaning we go through five or six a night. Waking mid-way through a cycle can leave you feeling more tired.

The calculator counts back from the time a person needs to wake in 90 minute cycles and takes into account a '15 minute dropping off period'.

So, if you need to be at the office by 9:00am, rising at 8am, it advises that you either go to bed at 10:46pm or wait for the next cycle to begin at 12:16am.

Some people like Margaret Thatcher, Gandhi and Winston Churchill may have famously thrived on less sleep but they're a rarity.

In fact, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco discovered a gene mutation in people that predisposed them to needing about 20 per cent less sleep than the rest of us. But they estimate those 'short-sleepers' only comprise around five per cent of the population.

'Sleep is like height, it's genetically determined,' says Dr Stanley. So if your mum or dad were short sleepers you may be too. But while the amount of sleep you need can vary from three to nine hours, most people need 7-8.'

'The best gauge is how you feel during the day,' says Dr Ramlakhan. 'The signs you're not getting enough sleep are cravings for sweets, caffeine and carbohydrates, wanting to go back to sleep as soon as you wake up and thinking about sleep during the day'.

Conversely, she says if you wake up without an alarm clock at the same time everyday – whether it's for work, at the weekend or on holiday – with only 4-5 hours sleep you could be among the lucky few genuine 'short-sleepers'.

Visitors to the site are asked to input their age and how many hours of sleep they got during the night before.

The Lost Sleep Calculator then reveals whether the person really is sleep deprived and, if so, how much sleep they are losing over a week, month, year and their lifetime overall.

The tool also takes brand new data from a poll of 2,550 Britons aged 18 or over and uses this to reflect how long a user spends sleepless because of niggling thoughts.