How long does it take for you to fall asleep after going to bed?

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Is you bedtime the same as your sleep time?

How long does it take for you to fall asleep after going to bed?

Seconds? Minutes? Hours!

Let’s say it is 20 minutes. That’s how long it would take you to finish a high-intensity interval training session.

20 minutes per day accounts for a little over 2 hours of wasted time per week!

But there could be a much bigger problem here.

If it takes you very long to fall asleep, your circadian cycle is also probably off. A disrupted circadian cycle is really a welcome sign to multiple other hormonal fluctuations in the body.

Ideally, it should take you minutes to fall asleep from the time you hit the bed.

So how do I fix this?

The simple answer is classical conditioning.

I was talking to a client this morning who mentioned working in the same room as she sleeps (her bedroom). Like most of us working from home in the post-COVID area.

During our consultation, she had a revelation that every time she enters the room now, she looks at her desktop and starts thinking about the work that she needs to get done.

This delays her sleep time because her mind was preoccupied with worry and stress right before bedtime.

We have all heard about only use our bedroom for sex or sleep, but not all of us have the privilege of a home- office.

I find another technique that helps me instead, a structured sleep routine.

One hour before bed, create a routine that doesn’t involve technology. Let me share my routine here to help you understand. My sleep time is 10.00 pm so my routine starts from 9.00 pm:

• 9.00 pm- 9.15 pm: Fold and put my laundry away.

• 9.15 pm- 9.30 pm: Take a shower and brush my teeth.

• 9.30 pm- 9.45 pm: Soak beans/ lentils (it’s a Vegan thing;)) and meal plan for the next day.

• 9.45 pm- 10.00 pm: Cuddle and ‘playtime’ with my partner till we fall asleep.

Do I follow this all the time? No, like everyone, I do it 80% of the time. When I am on a holiday, I will stay up till much later. When I have seminars or live workshops (mostly from the US), I will stay up.

But because 80% of the time this is my routine, I am unconsciously conditioning my mind to fall asleep at the end of my routine.

It takes me minutes to fall asleep almost always. But it took some time to train my mind and body to fall into this routine.

If you struggle with sleeping, make a bedtime routine. It is as important as a wake-up routine.

Actionable tip of the day.

Share your bedtime routine with me! I would love to see it. If you do not have one, create one now. If you can stick with the same on a weekend night (like today), trust me it will be much easier to stick with it on a workday!

Want more sleep tips, read this.

Loving you always,

Roshni Sanghvi.