Sticking to a sleep schedule seems sensible. Here's why I don't advise it.
I was presenting a live session this morning that provided attendees with relevant science and actionable advice on how to achieve sustainable high performance. The content was drawn from my book The Performance Prescription.
Part of the session focused on sleep, and I made the case for catching up on sleep when signs of sleep debt appear. During questions, I was asked about whether the ideal is to stick to a quite-rigid sleep schedule during the week and weekend. The answer is, it depends.
The idea that a regular sleep schedule is good for us does have some research behind it. A study of over 60,000 people tracked with wrist-worn activity monitors for about 8 years found that sleep regularity was a stronger predictor of death risk than sleep duration. People in the most regular fifth of sleepers had a 30% lower risk of dying, particularly from ‘cardiometabolic disease’, than those in the least regular fifth [1]. This ‘epidemiological’ evidence cannot be used to conclude causation from correlation, but it’s the best evidence we have, and my guess is that regular sleep schedule is genuinely healthier than one that is more erratic.
However, while I concede this, how many of us live in a world where our sleep and wake times are assured? My experience with literally thousands of business professionals and executives is that hardly any of us do. I've come to be genuinely cautious about handing out 'stick to a schedule' advice. It sounds sensible — and the habituation argument for it is real — but for many people, life simply isn't that predictable.
A late piece of work, a cross-timezone call, a 4.30 am start to make an early morning flight to Frankfurt, or a broken night’s sleep with a child can cause sleep debt to accumulate. When it does, insisting on a fixed bedtime and wake time can backfire, because it removes the one thing that actually helps — the chance to catch up. I'd go so far as to say that overly rigid sleep scheduling can be counterproductive.
My experience with real people with real lives is that getting more sleep quite soon after the debt accumulates almost always restores people faster than if they just try to ‘stick to the schedule’.
When it comes to catching up, what’s the best approach? Some may believe that having a lie-in is the answer. I don’t particularly recommend this, on the basis that most people have morning commitments that make extending sleep impossible. But, also, I’ve noticed a lot of people have a quite set wake-up time, and simply can’t sleep in – including at the weekend.
The lever that's more available, by contrast, is the other end of the night. Most people I speak to, once they think about it, can identify an hour or so most evenings — after work, dinner, a bit of downtime — where bedtime could realistically move earlier. If you think you're carrying some sleep debt, that's usually the best place to start.
References:
1. Windred DP, et al. Sleep regularity is a stronger predictor of mortality risk than sleep duration: A prospective cohort study. Sleep. 2024;47(1):zsad253
