London: The secret of a good night's sleep has finally been unveiled!
The precise time you should go to bed each night if you want to wake up feeling refreshed has been revealed in a new report.
Apparently, it's all to do with sleep cycles rather than getting more hours of sleep.
Sleep cycles are when we move through five stages of sleep that do not encompass rapid eye movement (REM) and one that does.
We cycle through from light sleep (stage 1) to a very deep sleep (stage 4) and then REM sleep, when we're most likely to dream.
It's thought that if we're roused suddenly, midway through a cycle, by an alarm clock or disturbance, it's more likely to make us irritable in the morning.
However, a website for a blinds company thinks they've come up with an answer.
They've attempted to calculate when you should go to bed, to meet your alarm clock at the perfect time.
For example, to wake up for a time of 7am, you need to head to bed at the following times: 9:46 pm or 11:16 pm or 12:46 am or 2:16 am.
How was this calculated?
It takes about 14 minutes to fall asleep and sleep cycles take around 90 minutes. So it's hoping you'll be coming out of a phase in time for your alarm. This is all pretty approximate though, as there's no guarantee your sleep cycles will match with 90 minutes.
Are there better options?
If you have a smartphone you can also download a sleep cycle alarm app.
These usually work by monitoring your activity as you sleep and attempting to wake you up at the moment you're cycling through phases, at the point when you're closest to awake, 30 minutes or more prior to the latest time you designate to be woken.
Some smart watches also come with a similar feature and can wake you with alarms or vibrations from your wrist, however smart watches are probably a fair bit more expensive than an app for your phone.
