How Long Should it Take You to Fall Asleep?

How Long Should it Take You to Fall Asleep? – Sleep is so important for the overall good health. There is much more to be cautious about than what you thought. Although both sleep quality and sleep duration are important, there is one more important factor to be kept in mind: how long does it take for an average person to fall asleep?

In the following article, we try to understand this aspect of sleep:

What is the Idle Time for you to Fall Asleep?

• Normally, a person should fall asleep within ten to twenty minutes after he takes to bed. However, a few experts also suggest that a few people may also take as little as seven minutes to finally fall asleep. This also is very normal.
• If you take more or even less time to fall asleep after you have taken to bed, there is something wrong about your sleep schedule and there is something which you might have to do in order to correct the same.
• If it takes more than the average twenty minutes for you to fall asleep, it is either you suffer from sleep deprivation or you must have slept quite a lot during the daytime. This is a symbol that you need to have a sleep schedule and effectively regulate your sleep cycle.
• Surprisingly, experts suggest that it is not idle to sleep before the average time of seven to ten minutes either. If you do happen to sleep early, it is a symbol for the body that you are not sleeping enough and exerting yourself way too much!

Experts have divided the time taken to fall asleep into four stages:

• Alpha Stage: In this stage, even if you are not asleep, you tend to feel dreamy. There is no activity going on and the brain is inactive. This stage is also experienced during the daytime when you have nothing going on.
• Theta Stage: This stage lasts for around 5-10 minutes. Herein, you are neither asleep totally nor are you totally awake.
• Delta Stage: in this stage, you will slowly get into what is called deep sleep. It’s the time just before you start dreaming. If you tend to talk or walk while sleeping, it is at this stage that these activities will occur.
• REM Stage: This is the last stage wherein you get into dreams. At this stage, there is a constant eye movement and the brain is active too which enables you to dream.

As seen, the above stages each have their own span of time and if the standard time for each stage is not followed, you will not get proper sleep and it will take you a lot longer to fall asleep than it normally does.

Factors Which Affect the Idle Time to Fall Asleep:

Following are the factors which play a great role in determining how fast or slow can you fall asleep:

• The level of noise in the room you are trying to sleep.
• It is also the smell of the pillows, Mattresses, covers, etc. on which you sleep. These factors will also affect the time. You will tend to feel uncomfortable if exposed to an unpleasant
• What is the ambiance of the room like and how much light is the room receiving? Most people tend to fall asleep faster in a dark room.
• State of the brain before you have taken off to bed. For example, if you have seen something on TV which has arose host of emotions like anger, anxiety, sadness, threat, etc. just before taking to bed. If you have experienced something of this sort, it will naturally take a longer time for you to fall asleep as the brain is in a highly active state.
• Exposure to technology is another factor which will determine how fast or slow will you be falling asleep. To substantiate, if you have larger exposure to mobile phones, tablets, or laptops you might take a little longer than usual to get into the REM stage of sleep.
• It is a known fact that your food intake will also affect sleep. So, if you have taken something which has high- fat content just a few minutes of getting into bed, it might disturb your sleeping time.
• Surprisingly, if you are staying in a place which is very close to cell phone towers or other transmitters, you will not fall asleep in the normal time period after taking to bed.

Now that you know the average time it should take for a healthy person to fall asleep, check out the time taken by you and take all necessary steps if it does not fall within the standard benchmark range!