How Long Does It Take You to Fall Asleep?

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Kiseki
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01 Mar 2011, 10:26 am

chris09 wrote:
When I was younger I could never sleep. I would literally lay in bed awake until the sun came up. I would miss school some times because I was way too tired to go. I always got in trouble too. Even though I tried my hardest to sleep I never could.

Within the last 3 or 4 years I am able to get to sleep pretty fast as long as I am tired. That is the whole thing. You can not miss your window of tiredness, like the first time you yawn in the evening and feel like you could go to bed. So that's how I do it. Some nights it is 8PM when I feel tired others it can be 2 or 3 AM. I just go to bed when my body tells me to.

If I miss my window of opportunity, or I am excited about the next day I can not sleep.

Like a few years I went to Disney World for a couple weeks with my family. The night before I could not sleep. I knew if I got to sleep it would feel like only a minute had passed and it would be morning and time to get on the road. But my mind kept racing.

=====================================

Question off topic though. When you are laying in bed and finally falling asleep do you notice that you start sort of dreaming while you are half awake. Like you hear conversations then are kind of jolted awake sometimes? Random I know.. I'm probably just crazy :)


This makes a lot of sense, about just going to bed as soon as you feel that first moment of tiredness. I actually have no problem passing out if I'm doing something- like sitting in front of the computer or reading or watching TV. But if I just lie in bed with only my mind there with me, I have SO much trouble!

Your off-topic Q...always happens to me! And the outside conversations or TV or whatever get incorporated into my weird half-dreams.


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ToughDiamond
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01 Mar 2011, 10:44 am

It takes me a few minutes to fall asleep, usually. I've been through insomnia problems, and my main way of solving those is to not go to bed until I feel sleepy. The main causes of my insomnia are background noise and brain chatter.....brain chatter is probably linked to stress, but not necessarily.



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01 Mar 2011, 10:58 am

jackbus01 wrote:
Mysty wrote:
I'm thinking the real question, the one that people are actually answering, is, how long do you remain aware of time passing after going to bed and before falling asleep. Which is going to be a subjective estimate unless the person answer is having enough trouble falling asleep that she looks at the clock again.

For me, typically, 5 or 10 minutes. I do have times when I'm getting rest but not losing consciousness, but that tends to be towards morning when I'm trying to fall back to sleep after waking up during the night. Occasionally it happens when falling asleep at night. Then it might take me an hour or two to fall asleep.


I have a bad "sense of time" so when I am awake I watch clocks a lot. The last thing I want to do is stare at my clock when I am trying to fall asleep. For me, I can either get to sleep or not.


I'm not suggesting anyone is staring at a clock, or should. Rather, the person asking the question, I think, is assuming that some of us (enough for him to get useful answers) can answer the question without needing to stare at a clock. Either through a sense of time passing, or from taking a look at the clock 20 minutes, or an hour, or whatever, after getting in bed and not having fallen asleep.


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SakeGirl
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01 Mar 2011, 11:11 am

It takes me over an hour to get to sleep, sometimes longer. I never feel as tired at night as I do in the afternoon, though.

Quote:
I try to leave the TV on and fall asleep to it, but that doesn't always work.


I usually have the radio on. It's easier to drift off to music rather then listening to that weird silence you get at night, if that makes any sense :lol:



alone
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01 Mar 2011, 11:24 am

I've almost got the narco. Even as a child I only slept at the max 6 hours, usually less. All I have to do is get horizontal, even midday or whenever, and I am out in 5 min. It is almost like I am in a coma too, I don't hear alarms-storms, nothing. I didn't hear a full fire alarm one time when it went off from a faulty sensor. When I wake up I'm fully awake, don't even lay there for a minute. Up and ready to go immediately, like I never went to sleep. Also, the less sleep I get the less I need ((kind of bipolary but not bipolar...or hyper..well kind of hyper :) .. )).

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Simonono
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01 Mar 2011, 11:30 am

An hour, and sometimes it can exceed 2 hours.



huntedman
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01 Mar 2011, 11:35 am

Mysty wrote:
I'm not suggesting anyone is staring at a clock, or should. Rather, the person asking the question, I think, is assuming that some of us (enough for him to get useful answers) can answer the question without needing to stare at a clock. Either through a sense of time passing, or from taking a look at the clock 20 minutes, or an hour, or whatever, after getting in bed and not having fallen asleep.


I usually end up glancing at a clock every twenty minuets to half hour when i'm trying to get to sleep, since that is about the longest time I can lie still and not move.

It usually takes me somewhere around an hour, although lately it has been worse than two



Douglas_MacNeill
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01 Mar 2011, 12:11 pm

It can be difficult for me to fall asleep, too. I wonder, however: I think there's another thread here about melatonin and the effects of taking a supplement of it (say, 1 x 1 mg tablet at night, just before bedtime) on your ability to fall asleep sooner and enjoy more restful sleep.



RW665
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01 Mar 2011, 1:40 pm

For me it can take up to an hour. There's usually a ton of thoughts going through my head which prevents me from going to sleep.



jc6chan
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01 Mar 2011, 1:46 pm

I usually don't look at the clock. One thing to mention though, is that I usually go pee at least once before falling asleep. Maybe over an hour.



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01 Mar 2011, 2:00 pm

For me, it's a schedule thing again. If I am required to, say, work 8-5, then I feel compelled to go to bed at an appropriate hour. But when I do that, no matter how little sleep I've had before that, it takes me at least an hour, usually more, to fall asleep. Without that imposed schedule, I don't even go to bed until I'm collapsing from exhaustion, then I fall asleep quickly.



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01 Mar 2011, 4:39 pm

around 2-3 am :lol:


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WillMcC
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01 Mar 2011, 7:49 pm

It usually takes me at least half an hour. In some cases, I'll start to drift off and then something will bring me back to full consciousness (e.g. noisy neighbors) and I'll be unable to get to sleep for a few hours after that. Other times (especially in hotel beds) it will be pure insomnia and I'll be unable to sleep at all until 4-5 in the morning

On a side note, I haven't needed to use an alarm clock for several weeks now, but that will probably change when daylight savings kicks in.


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01 Mar 2011, 9:23 pm

It often takes me at least an hour to fall asleep, I go to bed around midnight, have to be up at 7. I have been experimenting with my pre-bedtime rituals, including not watching tv or playing video games before bed, having a hot bath before bed, drinking warm milk with honey before bed, deep breathing and exercising (to get myself properly worn out). Sometimes these things help, sometimes not.

I find my mind races once I'm in bed...my spouse is asleep and not talking to me, the tv's not distracting me, and it seems like I finally have time to think or plan or whatever. I've tried visualizing tranquil scenery (which some people say helps) but don't seem to have mastered it.



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01 Mar 2011, 9:35 pm

I'm not entirely sure on the exact amount of time it takes, but it is quite a while. I have always been mesmerized by people who have the ability to lay down, shut their eyes, and become unconscious under five minutes. I do not sleep very much, and when I do, it is usually between 4a.m.-1p.m. If I allow thoughts pertaining to sleep enter my mind, I am royally screwed for at least another hour.



Kiseki
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01 Mar 2011, 10:19 pm

Yeah, like some other people have said my most comfortable sleeping schedule is from around 2-10 or 3-11. If I have to wake up early I just don't get any sleep. It is misery. When I know I have to be up at a certain time it's even harder for me to fall asleep than usual.


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