Here’s How You Can Fall Asleep Faster The Healthy Way

Would you dream of falling asleep the moment you hit the pillow? A rapid descent into nod might seem like nirvana, but it doesn’t signify a healthy sleeper.

A well-rested individual isn’t likely to fall asleep at once, said Harvard Medical School sleep medicine instructor Rebecca Robbins. Dr. Robbins asserted that healthy sleepers spend 15-20 minutes falling asleep.

Here’s How You Can Fall Asleep Faster The Healthy Way

When a person is extremely tired, falling asleep is different from sleep, which may cause frustration. Nevertheless, stay calm, and keep in mind that sleep will come. Worrying about not sleeping will likely make you feel more fatigued the next day, she said.

Don’t doze off, drift away instead

Getting too much sleep could damage your health, which can be both physical and mental. Author Tony Robbins equates not getting enough sleep to not getting food. She explained that a person who is starved for food will devour their next meal immediately, whereas someone who is well-nourished won’t be in desperate need of food as soon as possible.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend that adults sleep for at least seven hours every night, while children need between nine and 12 hours of sleep a night and teens need between eight and ten. Even if you are sleeping an adequate number of hours every night, what if you aren’t getting enough rest? If you are constantly tired during the day and fall asleep too soon, this may indicate poor sleep quality.

Sleep deprivation occurs when a person awakens multiple times during the night. Dr. Raj Dasgupta is a sleep expert at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. According to Dasgupta, waking up interferes with your ability to reach deep sleep stages, such as slow-wave sleep, or REM, which are necessary for full functioning and alertness.

As we sleep, we dream, and our memories are consolidated and formed as a result. REM sleep also impacts cognitive function, and a recent study found that less REM sleep is linked to higher overall mortality rates. As we sleep in slow waves and expel toxins, we allow our bodies to heal and rejuvenate.

It is very important to allow yourself sufficient amounts of total sleep time to increase the amount of deep sleep that you get, as noted by the American Sleep Association. You might detect snoring, gasping, choking, or even stopping breathing periodically during the night due to obstructive sleep apnea, which can interrupt your sleep without you even knowing it. A National Healthy Sleep Awareness Project report estimates approximately 25 million Americans suffer from this type of sleep apnea.

During the night, your (or your partner’s) legs may twitch or shake, causing restless legs syndrome. To mention a few, asthma, chronic pain, heart disease, diabetes, and gastroesophageal reflux disease all contribute to mental anguish. Cleveland Clinic states that several mental health disorders and medications can also impact sleep. If you don’t get enough sleep, you should consult a sleep specialist to see what is wrong, Dasgupta said.

How to get to sleep faster

You now know that the idea of going out like a light isn’t healthy, neither should the idea of needing 10 to 20 minutes to fall asleep. But what about those nights when sleep is elusive? Getting up will help. The same applies if you wake in the night and can’t sleep again: get out of bed and go to another room where it’s dim and do something calming until you feel drowsy again, advises Dasgupta.

Robbins concurs: Don’t toss and turn at night and get out of bed if you have trouble sleeping for some reason. It is just as refreshing to lie in bed with your eyes closed but not sleep, according to some people. Robbins said that was just a pipe dream: if we lie in bed, we will start associating the bed with sleeplessness.

Don’t let the bed be disturbed. Dasgupta advises keeping the bedroom as a traditional place for sleeping and having sex and not taking it for anything else. Describe what you expect when you enter the bedroom, and your brain will be more likely to drift off much more quickly. So, don’t watch TV or work in bed. Don’t answer your phone or make calls either. Whenever we see the blue light from an electronic device, our brains tell us to wake up, not to sleep.