Establishing Your Sleep Baseline

Before you optimize, you need to know where you're starting.

Your sleep baseline is your current reality—your actual patterns, not what you think they are. Establishing it is the foundation of effective sleep tracking.

Why Baselines Matter

Most people have a distorted view of their own sleep:

• They think they go to bed earlier than they actually do
• They underestimate how much their timing varies
• They overestimate their sleep quality
• They don't know which inputs actually affect them

A proper baseline corrects these misconceptions. It gives you:

• An accurate starting point for measuring improvement
• Data to identify patterns you didn't know existed
• A reference point for experiments and changes

Key Insight: You can't improve what you don't measure. And you can't measure improvement without knowing where you started.

The Baseline Period

How Long?

Minimum: 7 days (one full week) Recommended: 14 days (two full weeks) Ideal: 21-30 days

Longer baselines are more reliable because they:

• Include weekday and weekend patterns
• Smooth out day-to-day variation
• Capture unusual events that might skew short periods

What to Track

During your baseline period, track:

Core inputs:

• Sleep opportunity (when you get in bed)
• Wake time
• Caffeine consumption timing
• Alcohol consumption

Secondary inputs (as relevant):

• Exercise timing
• Last meal time
• Screen time before bed
• Stress level

Outcomes:

• Sleep quality (1-10 scale)
• Next-day energy (1-10 scale)

The Key Rule: Don't Change Anything

This is critical: during baseline, maintain your normal routine.

Don't:

• Try to go to bed earlier
• Cut caffeine
• Start a new exercise routine
• Make any changes intended to improve sleep

Why? Because you're measuring your current state, not your optimized state. If you change things during baseline, you won't know your true starting point.

What Your Baseline Reveals

After 2-3 weeks, you'll know:

Your Actual Sleep Opportunity Average

Most people discover they go to bed later than they thought.

Example discovery: "I thought I went to bed around 10:30pm, but my actual average is 11:15pm."

Your Timing Variability

How consistent (or inconsistent) is your schedule?

Example discovery: "My bedtime ranges from 10pm to 1am—way more variable than I realized."

Your Sleep Quality Baseline

What's your average sleep quality rating?

Example discovery: "My average is 5.8. I need to get this above 7."

Day-of-Week Patterns

Do certain days consistently have better or worse sleep?

Example discovery: "Sunday nights average 4.5. Every other night is above 6."

Initial Correlations

Do any inputs seem to correlate with quality?

Example discovery: "Nights when I'm in bed before 10:30pm seem consistently better."

Recording Your Baseline

At the end of your baseline period, document:

Metric	Your Baseline
Average sleep opportunity	:
Sleep opportunity range	: to :
Average sleep quality	___ / 10
Average next-day energy	___ / 10
Timing variability	___ minutes
Weekend shift	___ hours later
Worst day	___________
Best day	___________

This becomes your reference for all future changes.

Common Baseline Discoveries

"I'm Not Sleeping as Well as I Thought"

Many people rate their sleep poorly once they actually track it. That's valuable—it motivates change.

"My Weekend Pattern Is Extreme"

Weekend sleep shifts often reveal 2-3 hour timing differences that people didn't realize were happening.

"My Timing Is All Over the Place"

Consistency issues become obvious when you see the data.

"I Already Have Clues About What Matters"

Even baseline data shows correlation hints. These become hypotheses for future experiments.

After Your Baseline

Once you have a solid baseline, you can:

1. Identify Focus Areas

What does your data suggest you should work on?

• Late average bedtime? Focus on earlier sleep opportunity
• High variability? Focus on consistency
• Weekend shift? Address social jet lag

2. Set Improvement Goals

Based on your baseline, set specific targets:

• "Move average sleep opportunity from 11:15pm to 10:45pm"
• "Reduce timing variability from 90 minutes to 45 minutes"
• "Improve average sleep quality from 5.8 to 7.0"

3. Plan Experiments

Design controlled experiments to test hypotheses:

• "I'll test whether earlier bedtime improves quality"
• "I'll test whether maintaining weekend consistency helps Monday"

4. Measure Against Baseline

Every future period compares to your baseline. Improvement is relative to where you started.

Common Mistakes

Mistake 1: Baseline Too Short

One week might not capture your true pattern. Weekend effects, monthly cycles, and random variation all need time to average out.

Mistake 2: Changing Things During Baseline

"I couldn't help it—I started going to bed earlier." Now your baseline is contaminated. Start over.

Mistake 3: Not Tracking Consistently

Missed days reduce data quality. Set reminders. Make tracking easy.

Mistake 4: Forgetting to Document

At the end of baseline, record your numbers. You'll need them later.

Mistake 5: Getting Discouraged

Your baseline might show worse sleep than expected. That's information, not failure. It tells you where to improve.

What to Track in Trendwell

Input	Why Track	How
Sleep opportunity	Core timing metric	Time you get in bed
Wake time	Complete picture	Time you get up
Sleep quality	Primary outcome	1-10 rating
Energy	Secondary outcome	1-10 rating
Caffeine	Common input	Time of last consumption

Next Steps

• Read: Sleep Opportunity: The Metric You Can Actually Control
• Read: The Power of Sleep Consistency
• Read: How to Run Sleep Experiments
• Start tracking: Get started with Trendwell

Every journey begins with knowing where you are. Your sleep baseline is that starting point—the honest, data-driven picture of your current sleep reality. From there, improvement becomes measurable.

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Last updated: January 2026