What Time Do Most People Go to Bed? Average Bedtime Data

The average bedtime for adults is around 11 PM. In a study of more than 5,000 adults in many countries, the most common bedtime was 11:00 PM and the most common wake-up time was 7:00 AM. So when people ask what time most people go to bed, the honest answer is "about 11," with a wide spread on either side.

That headline hides a lot of variation. Bedtime shifts with age, differs slightly between men and women, moves later on weekends, and varies more from country to country than wake-up time does. Here's what large, peer-reviewed datasets actually show.

What time do most people go to bed?

Most adults go to bed between about 10 PM and midnight, with 11 PM the single most common time. The clearest number comes from a 2016 study in Science Advances by University of Michigan researchers. They used a free sleep app to collect normal bedtimes and wake times from 8,070 users, then kept 5,450 adults after removing outliers.

About 45% of the data came from the United States, with Australia, Canada and Europe making up much of the rest. The peaks were an 11 PM bedtime, a 7 AM wake time and 8 hours in bed.

Two caveats: people reported their usual times rather than having them measured, and answers were rounded to the nearest hour. So treat 11 PM as "the most common answer," not a precise average to the minute.

Average bedtime vs average sleep

An 11 PM bedtime and 7 AM alarm gives about 7 hours 45 minutes of sleep, not 8. You need time to fall asleep, usually around 15 minutes, and most people wake briefly during the night.

That works out to about 5.2 sleep cycles of 90 minutes, so the typical schedule lands close to, but not exactly on, the end of a cycle. If you take longer to drift off or wake often, the real total drops toward 7 hours.

Bedtime predicts how much people sleep

Across countries, later average bedtimes meant less sleep; wake-up times barely mattered. In the same study, average bedtimes varied more between countries than average wake times did, and the countries that went to bed later simply slept less.

The researchers suggested that social pressures in the evening push bedtimes later than our body clocks would choose, while the morning alarm stays fixed. That's useful for you, too: if you want more sleep, your bedtime is usually the lever you can actually move.

Average bedtime by age

Bedtimes are latest in the late teens and early twenties, then get steadily earlier with age. Three large datasets agree on this:

• Smartphone data (5,450 adults): age was the single biggest factor in sleep timing. Younger adults had later and much more spread-out bedtimes; adults over 55 had earlier and more similar schedules.
• Wearable data (69,650 adults in 47 countries): across more than 11 million nights, sleep onset and wake-up both moved earlier with age, and total sleep went down.
• US government data (NHANES, 11,951 people aged 6 and up): using activity monitors worn for a week, the midpoint of time in bed was latest at around age 20, then moved earlier into middle age.

The practical takeaway: a 1 AM bedtime is common at 20 and much less common at 50. If you're a young adult who feels wide awake at 11 PM, that's normal for your age. Our guide to night owls and early birds covers how chronotype shifts over a lifetime.

Do men or women go to bed earlier?

Women tend to go to bed slightly earlier and wake slightly later than men, so they schedule a bit more sleep. The smartphone study found this at nearly every age, with the gap most pronounced in middle age (30 to 60). The wearable study also found that men slept less than women across the lifespan.

The differences are modest. Within each group, the spread between individuals is much bigger than the average gap between men and women.

How much later do people go to bed on weekends?

Most people shift later on weekends, and the shift is biggest for young adults. In the US NHANES data, women aged 17 to 22 had a weeknight midpoint of about 3:50 AM. That moved 57 minutes later on Friday nights and 69 minutes later on Saturday nights, then only 23 minutes later on Sunday.

The wearable study found that bedtimes vary more from night to night on weekends than on weekdays, and that the weekday-weekend gap changes as people age.

A shift of up to about an hour is common. Much more than that can make Monday mornings harder, which is it bad to sleep in on weekends explains.

What bedtime is right for you?

The right bedtime depends on your wake-up time, not on what's average. Count back 7.5 or 9 hours of sleep (5 or 6 cycles) plus 15 minutes to fall asleep.

If you wake at 7 AM like the typical adult, an 11:15 PM bedtime gives you 5 full cycles, almost exactly the "average" schedule. If you wake at 6 AM, the average 11 PM bedtime leaves you short; aim for 10:15 PM instead.

For any other wake-up time, use the sleep calculator. To check how much sleep your current routine really gives you, enter your bedtime and alarm into the hours of sleep calculator. And for a fuller look at choosing your number, see what is a good bedtime for adults.