How to fall asleep quickly
Endlessly staring at your alarm clock at night trying to fall asleep is one of the worst ways to spend your precious time.
Listen, we’ve all been there. You lie in bed and count the dwindling minutes until you have to get up for work in the morning. Then, you move on to counting sheep which gets you precisely…nowhere. (Is there a prize for tallying up the most sheep? Because we’ve got some real contenders.)
When it seems like you’re never going to fall asleep again, don’t despair. We recently set our resident sleep technique tester (totally not a position we made up just now) the task of developing some tips and tricks for falling asleep quickly. Here are the results:
How long does it take to fall asleep?
On average, people take between five and twenty minutes to fall asleep after going to bed. That means if you’re getting some shut-eye within twenty minutes of putting your head on your pillow, you’re doing alright.
The world record holders for quickest time to fall asleep at 0.01 seconds.
There's always room to improve, though, even if you're within the average range.
Are you ready to fall asleep faster?
Turn down the heat
You may think of the bedroom as the place to turn up the heat (*wink, wink*), but when you’re trying to fall asleep quickly, a cooler temperature is your friend.
Experts say that a bedroom temperature between 60 and 67° F (15 to 19° C) is ideal for sleeping. There’s still room to adjust for personal preferences, but err on the side of cooler rather than warmer if you want to fall asleep quickly. Just make sure your bedmate doesn’t hog all the comforters!
Look at this guilty-looking cover-stealer.
Avoid naps close to bedtime
Everyone’s tempted by the call of a nice, mid-day nap occasionally, and napping is even good for you under the right circumstances. After a certain point in the day, though, that nap is probably going to do more harm than good.
Napping too close to when you go to bed can lead to you spending lots of extra time trying to fall asleep. Once the clock strikes 3 p.m., it’s a good idea to avoid that nap, however tempting it may be.
Wear a sleep mask
It’s no secret that excess light is the mortal enemy of great sleep. Sure, we’d all like to sleep in a pitch-black, silent sleep utopia, but that simply isn’t possible for all but the wealthiest Bezos. In the real world, light can sneak into your sleeping environment and keep you from falling asleep quickly.
The solution?
Slap on a handy-dandy sleep mask. They’re comfortable, stylish, and incredibly effective at keeping light out of your tired eyes. You’ll be asleep in no time.
Stop thinking about sleeping
Okay, we’ll admit that this tip may sound nonsensical at first. If you’re trying to fall asleep, surely you’re going to be thinking about falling asleep, right?
Resist that temptation. The more you think about falling asleep, the more you’ll feel stressed and anxious, and the harder it will be to go to sleep. Just try to let go and let sleep wash over you like lapping waves under a sunset on a cool summer evening…oh no, it's working, better quickly wrap up this article.
Bottom line: Don’t think about sleeping when you’re trying to sleep. It’s like trying not to think about pink elephants – it's tricky, but not impossible.
Get comfortable
No one’s going to immediately drift off into blissful sleep if they’re lying down on an uncomfortable mattress and scratchy sheets.
It’s not an immediate solution, but investing in some more comfortable bedding can significantly bring down the time it takes you to fall asleep. You also want to make sure your pajamas are comfortable or even ditch them entirely to sleep naked. Whatever works for you.
And don’t worry. We weren’t going to leave you hanging without a mattress suggestion. As it so happens, S&G recently released a premium natural eucalyptus mattress that’s sure to have you falling asleep in negative minutes. That’s right, Einstein, this mattress is so comfortable that it breaks the fabric of space-time.
Get yours today!
It's like a sleep magnet, honestly.
I love the blogs!!!! Helps so much. As a menopause woman, the sheets help. I also think staying cool at night is great. My husband is in sweats a lot at night, now your blog was right, gotta be stress for him.