How long does it take you to fall asleep?

The time it takes you to fall asleep is the time between when you make yourself available for sleep (i.e. reading materials down, light off, head on the pillow, snuggled in) and actually drift off to sleep.  It can be a little tricky to estimate since you may bob in and out of consciousness at first.  But most people can tell me how much time it usually takes them to get to sleep.  There is an amount of time considered “normal,” with a little buffer on either end to allow for our humanness. 

If you’re drifting off 10-20 minutes after lights out, that’s normal.  I don’t get too excited if you’re in the 5-10 min range, although you might start considering an earlier bedtime.  Less than 5 minutes to sleep consistently also suggests too little sleep.  

There are gradations of “too long” to sleep.  20-30 minutes to get to sleep is still probably ok.  Thirty minutes to an hour is getting a little long.  Spending an hour or more trying to sleep really starts to get frustrating, doesn’t it?  And some people deal with an unpredictable sleep schedule- feeling like they have a four hour window when you may or may not be able to drift off.

Before declaring yourself an insomniac, realize that your brain puts a lot of weight on the pattern of your sleep.  That is to say, keeping your time in bed consistent goes a long way in making your sleep time predictable.  

Yep, I know it’s about as exciting as saying “Eat your vegetables”.  

But if you’re not happy with your time to get to sleep, consider changing.  Just like you might think “Ah, it’s noon, that means lunchtime”- pick a bedtime AND a wake-up time and adhere to it.  That way your brain can know what to expect.  

If you are consistently lying in bed for more than an hour at night, push your bedtime later.  Don’t lie in bed frustrated!   

With consistency, your brain will get to sleep in a more predictable way, and your sleep quality will improve.