How To Know If You Need More Sleep — Or If Your Circadian Rhythm Is Off

Everyone experiences fatigue once in a while, but if you're constantly tired, there could be a couple of different culprits at play. For one thing, you may simply not be getting enough quality sleep—but on the other hand, your circadian rhythm might just be, well, out of rhythm.

One of the best ways to tell if your sleep issues are circadian-rhythm-related is to look at how you're sleeping on workdays versus your days off. According to Nishi Bhopal, M.D., who's board-certified in psychiatry, sleep medicine, and integrative holistic medicine, significant variability between the two can indicate a circadian rhythm problem.

"People with delayed circadian rhythms, or delayed sleep phase, tend to have trouble falling asleep when they have to get up early the next day, and then have trouble waking up on time," she says, adding, "They often feel sleepy and tired during the day, but on weekends when they can go to bed later and sleep in, they tend to sleep well and feel more refreshed."

People with advanced sleep phase, on the other hand, experience the opposite. These people "fall asleep early, sometimes as early as 6 to 8 p.m., and then wake up too early, sometimes around 3 to 4 a.m., then can't get back to sleep," Bhopal explains, noting that this tends to get more common with age.

Whether you're dealing with a delayed or advanced sleep phase, if your daily schedule isn't aligned with your circadian rhythm, you're going to feel regularly fatigued.

So, if you've been feeling fatigued and you want to get a handle on it, the first thing to do is figure out whether it's because of your circadian rhythm versus sleep deprivation. You can do some self-experimentation to figure out both how much sleep you need per night to feel rested, along with which "sleep chronotype" you are. (Here's a quick quiz to find out!)

Perhaps you realize your circadian rhythm is totally fine, and you actually just need an extra hour or two of sleep each night. If that's the case, do your due diligence to get all those hours as much as you can—because again, it will add up when you don't get enough.

And in terms of the four chronotypes, they relate to your optimal daily schedule based on circadian rhythm, and once you know which one you are, you can make adjustments to your schedule to accommodate your type.