Wake up at the same time every day, weekends too

Pick one time to get up and keep it seven days a week. Up means out of bed, and within half an hour either way counts. It's one of the core rules of CBT-I. A steady morning sets your body clock, and it means you've built up about the same sleepiness by each bedtime.

Why it helps

Two big things set when you get sleepy. One is how long you've been awake, because sleepiness builds through the day and gets spent at night. The other is your body clock, which keeps track of day and night. Sleep comes easiest when the two line up.

A steady get-up time helps both. Your body clock takes its cue from when your day starts, mostly through the light you see after you wake. In one study, with bedtime kept the same, two weeks of getting up three hours later moved people's body clocks about two and a half hours later. Getting up at the same time also means a full day of sleepiness builds before bed.

Should I sleep in on weekends?

Sleeping two hours later on Saturday and Sunday is a bit like flying a couple of time zones west for the weekend and back on Monday. Your body clock only follows part of the way, about half an hour in one lab study, but that's one reason Sunday nights can be hard and Monday mornings feel early. Researchers call the weekly gap social jetlag.

Should I still get up after a bad night?

Yes. After a rough night the lie-in feels earned. But by then your body clock is pushing you awake, so the extra time in bed is mostly light sleep or lying there, and any sleep you do get spends some of the sleepiness you'll need tonight.

Get up at your time and get some daylight, then keep the day ordinary. If you nap, keep it under half an hour and finish by 3pm. Your body usually makes up some of the lost sleep, mostly as deeper sleep, though not always the very next night.

Picking your time

Start from the time you have to be up on workdays. If work starts at nine and you need to be up at 7:30, your time is 7:30. It has to be one you can keep on a Sunday too.

If you wake before it, the time still stands. Rest if you can, or get up for a while if lying there gets to you, and keep the lights low until your usual time.

Is the get-up time more important than bedtime?

In CBT-I the get-up time is the fixed point and bedtime is allowed to move, because the morning is the end you can control. Nobody can fall asleep on command. So this habit doesn't come with a bedtime. Go to bed when you're sleepy, the heavy-eyed, nodding-off kind, even if that's later than you'd like for a while. Just don't push past it on purpose.

The first week

The first week can feel worse. Afternoons are heavier and you might have a rough night or two. That usually settles. Habits like this take weeks to show in your sleep, so give it at least two.

If you feel drowsy, this week or after any bad night, don't drive until it passes. If you doze off in the day without meaning to, talk to a doctor.

Getting yourself up

Put the alarm across the room, so turning it off means getting up, unless you're unsteady first thing. Have something to get up for, like the first coffee, the dog or ten minutes outside. Get some daylight in the morning. Light is the strongest signal your body clock gets, and outside beats a window, even on a cloudy day. And set the weekend alarm on Friday, before you talk yourself out of it.

Who it doesn't fit

If you work nights or rotating shifts, this habit doesn't fit as written. The same goes for the months of night feeds with a new baby.

If you have bipolar disorder or epilepsy, talk to your doctor before you start. A steady routine often helps, but short nights can bring on a high or a seizure.

If you can't fall asleep until the small hours however early you get up, but sleep well when you can sleep in, your body clock may run late. This habit on its own can leave you short of sleep, so it's worth asking a doctor about. Teenagers' body clocks run later and they need more sleep, so the same goes for them.

How Goodmorrow coaches it

For a lot of people, a set get-up time is one of the first habits we pick. Each morning starts with a line like "Day 4 of getting up at 7:30. How was yesterday?" The evening before, a nudge asks something like "Alarm set for 7:30? Weekends too." That goes out every evening for the first week, then mostly after a morning you missed.

After two weeks we look back over your mornings, with the wake-up times your ring or watch recorded if you wear one. A watch only knows when you woke, so a morning you woke early can count as a miss even if you got up on time. Then you decide whether to keep the habit, give it another week or drop it.