How long should it take to fall asleep?

Key takeaways

• An expert panel rated falling asleep within 30 minutes as good for every age group. The National Sleep Foundation’s panel called zero to 30 minutes good and more than 60 minutes poor.

• An NIH guide’s point to call a doctor is more than 30 minutes, on three or more nights a week. NHLBI’s diagnosis page sets no minute count.

• Very fast can be a flag too. In daytime nap tests, average latency is shorter after sleep loss and in narcolepsy, and researchers once proposed under five minutes as a sleepiness cutoff.

• You may misjudge your own time. People with insomnia tend to overestimate how long they take, and in one large study even people with normal sleep showed a gap between reported and measured sleep.

• Research points to a warm shower and a written to-do list, though the evidence is limited.

What “falling asleep” means

Sleep latency, or sleep onset latency, is the time between trying to sleep and actually sleeping. In a sleep lab it’s scored from brain-wave recordings in 30-second segments, and the start point varies by study. At home it’s usually a guess. The Consensus Sleep Diary, an expert-consensus sleep diary, asks for the time you got into bed, the time you tried to fall asleep, and how long it took you to fall asleep.

What counts as normal?

One widely read report is a 2017 consensus from a National Sleep Foundation expert panel, built on a systematic review of 277 studies and three rounds of voting. It rated a sleep latency of up to 15 minutes, and 16 to 30 minutes, as good sleep quality across all age groups. It rated 46 to 60 minutes as poor for every group except older adults, and more than 60 minutes as poor for everyone. The panel gathered expert opinion for otherwise healthy people, so it describes judgments and not measured times. The paper’s text doesn’t rate 31 to 45 minutes.

Measurements of healthy adults suggest it changes little with age. A meta-analysis of 65 studies covering 3,577 healthy people found that sleep latency rose by less than 10 minutes between ages 20 and 80, and that women took somewhat longer than men. A pooled analysis of 169 sleep-lab studies of 5,273 healthy adults found about 1.1 more minutes per decade of age. Both drew on screened, mostly healthy samples measured by polysomnography or actigraphy, so they aren’t a population norm.

Can you fall asleep too fast?

Daytime nap tests suggest so. A 1978 study of 14 healthy people and 27 people with narcolepsy proposed that an average of less than five minutes to fall asleep be treated as a sign of pathological sleepiness. It used a test of daytime sleepiness, not a bedtime measure, and a later AASM review found these times are shorter after sleep loss and in disorders like narcolepsy, but the wide range makes a firm cutoff hard to set. The NIH’s guide to healthy sleep lists falling asleep within five minutes when you have the chance to nap among the signs to raise with a doctor if it happens three or more nights a week.

Nobody has set a bedtime cutoff for this. Our guide to how much sleep you need explains why there’s no single number.

When is it too slow?

The NIH’s Your Guide to Healthy Sleep says to talk to your doctor if it takes you more than 30 minutes to fall asleep on three or more nights a week. It’s a 2011 consumer brochure. Research criteria for insomnia vary. One review found a sleep onset latency or time awake in the night of 31 minutes or more, on three or more nights a week for six months or more, the most defensible, while a sleep-log study of 72 adults with insomnia and 88 good sleepers found an average of 20 minutes or more of latency or middle-of-the-night waking over two weeks separated the groups best.

NHLBI’s diagnosis page sets no minute count. It says you may be diagnosed with insomnia if you have difficulty falling or staying asleep on at least three nights a week, and it’s considered chronic when that lasts three months or longer. It suggests keeping a sleep diary for one to two weeks before seeing a doctor. A single slow night doesn’t meet that three-nights-a-week definition.

How well can you judge your own time?

In a 1976 lab study of 122 people with chronic insomnia complaints, most overestimated how long it took them to fall asleep and underestimated how long they slept. A review of the research found this tendency is ubiquitous in insomnia, though not universal, and that worry and brief awakenings explain part of it.

A Sleep Heart Health Study analysis found gaps between reported and measured sleep in all four groups, including people with normal sleep. People with insomnia overestimated by 7.8 minutes on average, with a standard deviation of about 37 minutes.

Wearables don’t settle it. A meta-analysis of 24 studies and 798 people found consumer wrist trackers read sleep latency about 2.6 minutes longer than a sleep lab on average, mostly driven by one device family, and the authors concluded they aren’t as reliable for latency, though useful for general patterns.

What can shorten it?

Evidence is limited, but two ideas have some research behind them. A meta-analysis of warm showers and baths pooled 13 studies and found that water at 40 to 42.5°C (about 104 to 109°F), taken one to two hours before bed for as little as 10 minutes, shortened the time to fall asleep. The abstract doesn’t give the minutes saved, and the authors called the research scarce. The NIH guide also mentions a hot bath before bed.

In a lab study of 57 healthy adults aged 18 to 30, people who spent five minutes writing a to-do list before bed fell asleep faster than people who wrote about completed tasks. It was one night in healthy young adults.

Other habits that affect how quickly you fall asleep are covered in our guides to coffee timing, evening exercise, phone light, and bedroom temperature.

What to do while you’re waiting

Try not to watch the clock. The NIH guide advises turning the clock face out of view and, if you’re still awake after about 20 minutes or starting to worry, getting up to do something relaxing. Our guide to when to get out of bed covers how.

If you regularly take more than 30 minutes to fall asleep, it’s affecting your days, or it has gone on for months, talk to a doctor. The NIH guide also lists restless legs sensations when you try to fall asleep among the signs to raise with a doctor.

The short version

An expert panel rated falling asleep within about 30 minutes as good, and an NIH guide’s point to call a doctor is more than 30 minutes on three or more nights a week. These are rules of thumb, and your own estimate may be off.

Frequently asked questions

How long should it take to fall asleep?

An expert panel rated up to 30 minutes as good sleep quality for all age groups. An NIH guide says to talk to a doctor if it takes more than 30 minutes on three or more nights a week.

Is falling asleep in five minutes good?

It can be a flag. In daytime nap tests, average latency is shorter after sleep loss and in narcolepsy, though those tests aren’t a bedtime measure.

Does it take longer to fall asleep as you get older?

A meta-analysis of healthy people found latency rose by less than 10 minutes from age 20 to 80.

Why does it feel like I lie awake for an hour?

People with insomnia tend to overestimate how long they take. In one study, the average overestimate was about eight minutes, with wide variation.

When should I see a doctor?

If it takes more than 30 minutes on three or more nights a week, if it has lasted for months, or if it affects your days.