The Sleep Quiz: find your chronotype and ideal bedtime

    This six-question assessment maps your daily habits — chronotype, caffeine timing, screen exposure, exercise window, primary sleep complaint, and required wake time — onto a personalized sleep schedule. Each question is grounded in peer-reviewed sleep research; we explain the science behind every option as you go.

    Your result includes an ideal bedtime aligned to 90-minute sleep cycles, a wind-down start time, a caffeine cutoff calibrated to caffeine's 5–6 hour half-life, and a prioritized list of evidence-based recommendations. No account, email, or tracking required — your answers stay on your device.

    Length

    ~60 seconds

    Questions

    6 (single-choice)

    Output

    Personalized schedule

    Educational tool only. Not a diagnostic instrument — see our methodology and editorial policy for sources and limitations.

    Question 1 of 6

    When do you naturally feel most alert?

    This identifies your chronotype — your genetic sleep-wake preference.

    The science behind each question

    Every prompt in this quiz isolates a single, well-studied variable in sleep regulation. Here is the reasoning behind each one and the research it draws on.

    1. Chronotype

    Chronotype is the genetically and developmentally influenced preference for earlier or later sleep timing. Roughly 40% of adults are morning-leaning, 30% evening-leaning, and 30% intermediate (Roenneberg et al., Current Biology, 2007). Forcing yourself into a schedule that conflicts with your chronotype causes "social jet lag" — chronic misalignment linked to higher BMI, depression risk, and reduced sleep efficiency.

    2. Caffeine timing

    Caffeine's half-life averages 5–6 hours, meaning a 3 PM coffee still leaves ~50% of the dose in your system at 9 PM. A 2013 controlled trial (Drake et al., Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine) found that 400 mg of caffeine taken even six hours before bed reduced total sleep time by more than an hour. We use your last-caffeine answer to suggest a personalized cutoff.

    3. Pre-bed screen time

    Short-wavelength (blue) light suppresses melatonin secretion in a dose-dependent manner (Chang et al., PNAS, 2015). Two hours of evening tablet use delayed melatonin onset by ~1.5 hours and reduced morning alertness. Even with night-shift filters, the alerting effect of engaging content persists.

    4. Exercise window

    Moderate exercise improves sleep quality across nearly every population studied (Kredlow et al., 2015 meta-analysis). The timing matters less than older research suggested — modern data shows late-evening workouts only impair sleep when finished within ~60 minutes of bedtime, and only for sensitive individuals.

    5. Primary sleep complaint

    Sleep-onset difficulty, early-morning awakening, sleep inertia, and schedule irregularity respond to different interventions. The quiz routes you to the highest-yield change for your specific pattern rather than generic advice.

    6. Required wake time

    Your bedtime is computed backward from this anchor in 90-minute cycle increments, plus a 15-minute sleep-onset buffer. See our full methodology for the formula and assumptions.

    How we generate your result

    Each answer adds or subtracts from a 100-point baseline sleep-health score and contributes weighted ranking to a tip library of roughly 40 recommendations. The top-ranked tips for your specific combination of answers are surfaced as your "Top Recommendations." Your schedule (bedtime, wind-down, caffeine cutoff) is derived deterministically from your wake-time and chronotype answers — the same inputs always produce the same output, which you can verify by retaking the quiz.

    We do not store your answers, do not require an email, and do not use the results for advertising. The sleep-cycle math is identical to our main calculator — this quiz simply combines it with chronotype and habit data for context.

    When to see a sleep specialist

    Quizzes and calculators cannot diagnose sleep disorders. If you experience any of the following for more than three weeks, consult a board-certified sleep physician — not an app:

    • Loud snoring with witnessed pauses in breathing (possible sleep apnea)
    • Persistent inability to fall or stay asleep despite good sleep hygiene
    • Excessive daytime sleepiness even after 8+ hours in bed
    • Acting out dreams physically, or unexplained nighttime injuries
    • Sudden episodes of muscle weakness when laughing or excited (possible narcolepsy)