Over the last few years, as I have begun to really struggle with my sleeping, I have talked to many couples about their own sleep habits. I have noticed that there is usually one spouse who falls asleep in record time, and another one who takes forever to drift off. My random sample is certainly not empirical, scientific data, but it sure inspires me to want to learn how to fall asleep faster than my wife. Why should she be the one to doze off quickly every night?
I have always been slow to get to sleep. I think all the time. I have been that way ever since I was a child. I even wrote a poem in the third grade with the line: I love to lay and think of the wonderful things to make, and then my dad yells at me for staying up too late. Hey, it may not be Shakespeare, but it won me $ 25 bucks back in the day. And, it is immortal proof that I just do not have the gift of being able to turn my brain off quickly, and thus being able to drift off slowly.
My wife and I are different. She is more artsy, and I am more mathematical. She thinks totally differently than I do. She is not a long term planner. I am. She does not always think things out as logically as I do. While that may seem like a nice way to say she is scatter-brained, it also means she is more free-spirited than me. I believe this impacts how we fall asleep. My wife knows how to fall asleep faster because she can turn her brain off on a dime. Do not misunderstand me. My wife is very smart. She just does not have a need to constantly analyze things the way I do.
On many a night my body was dead tired, but all I could do was lay there and wish I knew how to fall asleep faster. Many times I would eventually fall asleep, but would find myself waking up in the middle of the night, with some of the same thoughts I had while I was drifting off to sleep now gripping my mind again and refusing to let go. How about you? Are you the same way? Is it difficult to turn off the thoughts? Are you more artsy, or analytical? Are you more logical, or emotional? Could there be a connection between how your brain is wired and how quickly you fall asleep?
Sean Dawson is an author who helps others learn how to fall asleep fast. He also recommends, for those who need it, the following all natural sleep aid .