When it's time to lengthen/extend your sleep window should you start it earlier or end it later?

When you allot an appropriate (and consistent!) amount of time for sleep you help build sleep drive — and this can help reduce the amount of time it takes to fall asleep at the start of the night and reduce the amount of time you spend awake during the night.

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Furthermore, when you start to recognize signs of sleepiness (rather than fatigue) and you can see that sleep drive is still present, you can be reassured that you haven't lost your ability to sleep and that you are capable of improving your sleep!

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So, if you have been observing an appropriate sleep window and are now at the stage where you are filling that sleep window with sleep and feel you are capable of getting more sleep, you can start to extend it a little — and it really doesn't matter if you account for the extra time by starting the sleep window a bit earlier, ending it a bit later, or splitting the difference!

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If you choose to start the sleep window 15 minutes earlier, bear in mind that you may not feel sleepy enough for sleep at the earlier time when you first change the window — so remember that the start of the sleep window is your earliest possible bedtime. If you don’t feel sleepy when the sleep window begins, wait until you do feel sleepy before going to bed.

Finally, give yourself at least a week or two with the new sleep window before reflecting on how the new window worked for you — you do not want to be monitoring your sleep from night to night because what happens from night to night doesn't really matter because you are improving your sleep for the long term!

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