What regularly going to sleep after midnight says about your health

There’s no universal rule that says you have to go to bed at a certain time when you’re an adult, but you’ve likely heard the common refrain that it’s best to fall asleep before midnight. But how bad is it if you don’t hit the sheets until the clock strikes 12? While sleep medicine specialists say you don’t need to freak out if you’re a night owl, having a very late bedtime can indicate that something isn’t quite right with your sleep, Christopher Winter, a neurologist and sleep medicine specialist with Charlottesville Neurology and Sleep Medicine in Virginia, and the host of the Sleep Unplugged podcast, tells Yahoo Life.

Here’s what the research shows about going to bed after midnight and what sleep experts think about this habit. Also, we’ve included a few tips for making your bedtime a bit earlier, just in case you’re considering trying to conk out sooner at night.

What does science say about going to bed after midnight?

There’s not a ton of research that looks into the impact of going to bed after midnight, but there is some — and, unfortunately, for those who tend to stay up late, it’s not great news.

A study published earlier this month in JAMA Network Open analyzed data from nearly 1,200 people and found that those who consistently fell asleep after midnight had higher glycemic variability. (In case you’re not familiar with it, glycemic variability is how much blood glucose levels go up and down. In a perfect world, they’re stable.) The study’s authors pointed out that glycemic variability is a risk factor for chronic disease and early death, which makes it reasonable to wonder if going to bed after midnight puts you at risk for those bad outcomes.

Falling asleep past midnight can also affect your mental health. A 2024 study published in the journal Psychiatric Research found that people who go to bed after 1 a.m. were at a higher risk of having depression and generalized anxiety disorder, regardless of whether they identified as being a morning person or night owl.

Some older research also links going to bed late and struggling to wake up in the morning to having a shorter lifespan, along with a higher risk of health complications like diabetes and psychological disorders.

What happens to your body if you go to sleep after midnight?

It depends. If you regularly go to sleep after midnight, but you also don’t have to be anywhere until later the next morning, your bedtime is unlikely to be an issue, Jade Wu, a behavioral sleep medicine specialist and author of Hello Sleep: The Science and Art of Overcoming Insomnia Without Medications, tells Yahoo Life. “There is nothing magical about midnight,” she says.

But Wu says that going to bed after midnight depends on a number of factors, including your chronotype (i.e., your biologically hardwired body clock), when you get up in the morning, how much sleep you need, what you do during the day and evening and how consistent your sleep timing is.

Wu also recommends keeping this in mind when it comes to midnight bedtimes: “When a research study shows harmful associations with going to bed after midnight, it's not because midnight is a special time, but because when you do a research study and ask people about their sleep habits, you have to categorize their answers somehow,” she says. “If, on average, people are healthier and happier when they consistently go to bed before midnight, it's likely because people, on average, need to get up early enough for work/family that routinely going to bed after midnight means they routinely don't get enough sleep.”

That said, going to bed after midnight often suggests that you may be less likely to be getting enough sleep, Dr. Beth Malow, director of the Vanderbilt Sleep Division at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, tells Yahoo Life. It also means you may be messing with your circadian rhythm, which is your body’s natural 24-hour cycle, she adds. Your circadian rhythm helps regulate multiple physiological and behavioral processes in your body, including signaling to your body that it’s time to wake up or wind down for bed, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

“Our natural circadian rhythms usually have us going to bed earlier, before midnight,” Malow says.

Going to bed past midnight here and there can mess with your health too. Falling asleep after 12 a.m. if you typically go to bed around 10 p.m. may mean that you don’t get as much deep sleep as you need, Winter says.

“Deep sleep happens predominantly in that first one to two hours. So, for the average sleeper, that’s probably 10 p.m. to 12 a.m.,” he explains. “Going to bed after midnight means missing out on the bulk of deep sleep/slow wave sleep.” This phase of sleep is when growth hormone and other chemicals are secreted — missing out can inhibit those and increase levels of the stress hormone cortisol, according to Winter. “Both negatively affect blood sugar and mood,” he adds.

How to move up your bedtime

If you consistently go to bed at midnight or even later, but you don’t have to be up early the next morning, your standard bedtime may not be an issue. But if you feel like you have trouble going to bed before midnight and you have to be somewhere in the morning, sleep specialists say there are a few things you can do to try to move up your bedtime.

• Get a big dose of bright light in the morning. Wu recommends going outside for 20 minutes or so, if you can fit it into your morning. This helps signal to your body that it’s time to wake up and helps to keep your circadian rhythm in line with the daylight. If that’s not doable, Winter suggests eating breakfast or getting ready next to a window to expose yourself to natural light.

• Don’t nap during the day. This can be difficult to achieve if your sleep wasn’t great the night before. But Winter points out that naps can throw your sleep schedule out of whack and push your bedtime back even more.

• Consider wearing blue light glasses before bed. Screens emit blue light, which can interfere with your circadian rhythm and your ability to wind down before bed. That’s why doctors usually recommend staying off screens before bed. Unfortunately, that’s not possible for everyone, and for that reason, Wu suggests wearing blue-light-blocking sunglasses for several hours before bed.

• Work out regularly. Having an exercise routine in place can help support good sleep, Malow says. She recommends maximizing physical activity during the day so that you’re ready to crash when bedtime rolls around.

If you feel as though you've tried everything and still your sleep isn’t as healthy as it should be, it’s worth consulting a health care professional to help determine what might be going on. But, if you regularly go to bed at midnight and wake up feeling refreshed, more power to you!