I’ve always been quite envious of my sister, who can fall asleep at a moments notice.
Nine-hour airport layoff with only an uncomfortable airport departure lounge chair to sleep in? She’s out like a light. Fourteen hour transcontinental flight immediately afterwards? Just go to sleep again…
I don’t fall asleep unless I’m exhausted. If I am woken at any time during the night I don’t usually get back to sleep, because that initial exhaustion is satiated by even a half-hour of zzz’s.
I can’t fall asleep while lying flat on my back. I need to lie on my side so that one of the sides of my head gets “heavy” with tiredness. If I’m lying flat on my back looking at the ceiling my thoughts don’t slow down enough for me to fall asleep.
For each house I’ve lived in over my life I could tell you what it was I used to stare at while hoping that sleep would finally claim me (eg the doorbell light of the house across the road, stars out the window, poster of a car that my parents saw fit to put on my wall when I was 5yo, etc).
What is it like to be able to fall asleep easily? Is it just a decision that you make: “I’m going to just switch off now”?
No, seriously, I don’t know. I’ve (almost) always been able to fall asleep within seven minutes of putting my head down. Last night my SO had a migraine, so he was laying down in the other room. I went in and laid down next to him for a few moments, but I had to get up because I had the distinct feeling I could fall asleep if I stayed more than a minute. (I was tired.)
I love sleeping, probably for this reason. It is like a blissful cloud - I conk out and rarely wake up until my SO gets up in the morning. Even then I wake up long enough to tell him I love him and then go right back to sleep until (usually) just before the alarm.
Repetitive noises wake me up, as well as my name. So a loud bang may or may n ot wake me up but the construction vehicle repeatedly backing up…BEEP BEEP BEEP will wake me up.
I’m not as close as your sister. I do have a difficult time sleeping anywhere that is not my own home - I don’t feel as comfortable in other people’s homes (plus they are usually too freakin hot. Airplane, I can usually sleep. Airport, not so much.
I usually have no trouble, but what I do is put something boring on TV and set the sleep timer for 20 or 30 minutes. TV just makes me sleepy.
When I do have trouble and no TV, I usually think about a white wall or concentrate on relaxing my body, keeping it totally motionless one part at a time, from my toes up to my head.
I have sleep anxiety and take Restoril every night. It doesn’t put me to sleep, but it makes me not care if I don’t sleep. I cannot fall asleep anywhere except my own bed. No sleeping in cars or airplanes or airports or in front of the tv. That said, most nights I fall asleep within 15 minutes of turning off the light. It’s wonderful. My father always said “the best part of the day is that time between going to bed and falling asleep.” It’s like I’m in own nest, warm and cuddly and drowsy and thinking pleasant thoughts. I went to bed early last night and slept 8 hours without waking up once (usually I wake up at least once to go to the bathroom). That’s my idea of a perfect night’s sleep.
Well, I’ve never been able to fall asleep without drugs or exhaustion, though I don’t think that’s a problem with ME as it is with the 24 hour cycle. Make it a 30 hour cycle and I’m fine.
But I can tell what it looks like second hand, as MrTao is never awake more than a minute or two before zonking out. Clearly he has a shorter cycle, lucky dog.
The switch off part is something I have had to work on to get to sleep too. Finally got a grip on it with the help of TM (meditation) It OK to go over the things and to make lists, but then as each thing is checked off you don’t repeat or dwell on it, and then with repeating a sound like a AHHH over and over you cant bring it back, relax, don’t do the garden gate thing (rolling back and forth) and well it still takes me 15 min or so to fall asleep, but I am way better than the hour or so it use to take.
It’s so very nice. I would guess that I’m usually asleep within 2 minutes (or less) of putting my head on my pillow. On the rare occasion that doesn’t happen, I’m at a loss about what to do about it.
eta: I cannot, however, sleep if the TV is on. Too distracting.
I am the worst at falling asleep. Not at all uncommon for me to be awake an hour after turning off the light and closing my eyes–even two hours isn’t strange. Since participating in the polyphasic sleep experiment of having a baby who would not go more than 2 hours between feedings until he was over 7 months old I am finding I am slightly better at falling asleep, but not much.
That said, a few years ago I got a headache that lasted days. Piercing, stabbing pain–not migraine pain. I ended up going to the doctor and getting some straight up pain pills, and those pills were the greatest thing on the planet. I found at any time of the day or night I could fall asleep in an instant. I just had to think “Gee, I’d like to be asleep now”, curl up, and I’d be out. It was glorious.
I don’t know. I’m so jealous of my friends who can nap whenever they feel tired, or fall asleep wherever they happen to be.
It’s a minimum of 1 hour between me going to bed and me sleeping. Minimum. It’s usually 2 or 3.
And if anything is going on the next day? Sleep doesn’t happen. I’ve gone to the last 8 or so rat shows on 1 hour or less of sleep, which gets harder the older I get. Choir in the morning? No sleep. Therapy in the morning? No sleep. Lunch with my mom? No sleep. Literally ANYTHING scheduled for the next day is enough to put my brain in the buzz-zone.
It’s not like we can really tell you how it feels. I mean, we fall asleep! You can tell us all about insomniac nights (and I have had a few of those, too), but I fall asleep so fast 99% of the time that I really don’t know how to describe.
I love sleeping and falling asleep. I love every stage.
That first stage where I enjoy just laying comfortably and know all the chores I was going to do, are done.
The next stage where my body just pings down, unwinds, and gets comfortable.
The stage after that, where my bed warms up and I can shift positions and every position is that delightful mix of warm and cool just where I want it. Back firmly pressed on the electric blanket, hot foot skinnydipping in the cool air outside my bed.
Just when that stops being a conscious delight, I’ve found that my thoughts drift off peacefully. I can let go, or reach up and examine what I was thinking, in that detached, amused way. It is like lying on a beach and playing with the shifting sands between your fingers in a quiet, calm surf of little, sandsinking waves. If this stage doesn’t come easy, (but I trust that it does, as it has always) I’ve found that the drifting off/letting go part is easily practiced in meditation.
After that, I’m just gone till morning. If I wake up during the night, I’m just happy I get to get out, have a cup of tea and a quiet little time to myself, and then I go back to bed and get to start all over again, with the added bonus of the sleeping warmth of my husband who, by then, has come to our bed.
I love sleep. I love it a little too much, I think.
While you may be jealous of people who can fall asleep easily, in my case at least I can fall asleep easily but also have a general laziness and lack of energy throughout the day.
I learned it while doing construction in my late teens. We usually had a 30-60 minute drive to the job site mostly on the highway first thing in the morning and then the same drive home at the end of the day. We drove in big pick up trucks that had good shocks and the hum of the diesel engine just hummed you to sleep. In the morning, I woke up 10 minutes before work so wasn’t fully functioning yet and could just go back to sleep. In the afternoons, I had worked and sweated all afternoon and the sleep came before we got the truck onto the road. To this day, I credit it with my being able to sleep upright and without leaning (if you leaned on anyone in the truck you got hit on the knee with a hammer).
I have also maintained that bed = sleep. I don’t read in bed, I don’t TV in bed, I don’t play with my iPhone in bed. I get in bed, I get comfortable, and I close my eyes. I would guess that it takes me less than 30 seconds most nights.
I had insomnia my entire life, I got divorced and set up my house and the insomnia went away instantly, I would lay my head down and not move for a solid 6 hours. I moved in with my girlfriend and the insomnia is back. I fall asleep fast about 8pm but I am up before midnight and up all night.
Pretty nice and I’m VERY thankful to have that ability. My mom had horrible insomnia her whole life. I’ve had just enough of it (usually after surgeries) to know I want none of it.
I think insomnia is the #1 most untreated problem in the US; IME doctors simply don’t take it seriously enough and they don’t do shit to fix it.
I’ve never slept more than 4 hours at a time. I often take over an hour to fall asleep.
I’ve discovered that telling myself a story helps me fall asleep faster. I have one that has many endings. It’s a walk. Sometimes through a forest, sometimes along a beach. But, all have a soft, comfortable end. I often never get there.
When I’m obsessing about our bigest concern, MONEY, I make up a scenario about winning the lottery. I never play, but thinking about lots of money makes me sleepy, I guess.
