I always find it quite complicated to fall asleep. When I see people who close their eyes and just fall asleep instead of laying there for at least an hour telling themselves stories, I feel totally weirded out. You are considered to have a sleep disorder if you can’t fall asleep within 7 minutes of going to bed. According to this standard, I have a disorder times ten.
There are, however, things that put even an inveterate insomniac like me to sleep in an instant. One such thing is the expression “Hillary ‘ s emails.” I’m now afraid of listening to the radio on the highway because I know I’ll doze off if somebody mentions the blasted emails.
Clarissa's Blog 
Very funny post and I completely agree. I can’t even read past the headlines about the Clinton e-mails. Is anyone legitimately concerned about this?
But I was very surprised by something else you said. Are people truly supposed to fall asleep in 7 minutes? Who can do that? The human body isn’t a light switch. Even my husband, who I consider an excellent sleeper, takes 20-30 minutes to fall asleep. (I take much longer.) I think that according to the 7 minute standard, everyone I know has a sleep disorder. I am just so surprised by that statistic; it just seems so unrealistic!
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I read this on a flyer that was distributed at the Y with all kinds of health factoids. And I believed it because both my husbands fall asleep within 7 seconds of closing their eyes. It’s downright scary to see.
(The husbands were my husbands at different times. Somehow I made it sound like it was all simultaneous.)
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I agree, the 7-minute rule seems unrealistic. It take me longer than that to get my pillow fluffed properly. And I wake up frequently during the night, because of various aches and pains. If I make the mistake of rolling over onto my back I wake up, because my throat closes up if I try to sleep on my back. It’s a quandary.
Just read that Robert Conquest has died:
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Seven minutes! Yikes. My husband can do that. He lies down & he’s asleep. But yeah, it takes me an hour or two and a lot of luck before I’m asleep. And my kid as well. I’ve never known anyone but my husband who does the instant-sleep thing. I always thought he was just a freak. So he’s the normal one?
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You are considered to have a sleep disorder if you can’t fall asleep within 7 minutes of going to bed
What? The Google thinks it should take you 15-20 minutes to fall asleep. Also conking out inside of 10 minutes only happens to me when I’m very exhausted.
Be very boring, keep the same bed and wake up time every day (or the same wakeup time) finish your meals 2-4 hours before you sleep, keep the room dark, and stop using your phone, laptop, tv and computer an hour before bedtime.
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If I can’t have my phone in bed, I’ll never fall asleep at all. 🙂
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I’d install an app like fl.ux or Twilight on the phone and the computers so the white and blue light isn’t keeping me up. It helps a lot. I sit my phone face down when I’m going to bed.
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I’ve been told that a if a person falls asleep too quickly, this is a sign of sleep deprivation.
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I am a fall-asleep-instantly freak. I can fall asleep in any position and in any chair or vehicle. I also like to nap. The younger two boys are like me (fall asleep easily, also like to nap).
I might be perpetually sleep deprived, but so is my husband and he still takes forever to fall asleep. My eldest boy is like the husband; the two never ever nap.
If I read in bed, however, it totally messes with my falling asleep.
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Radio podcasts (BBC or NPR) are my stand-by for nights when I can’t get to sleep. The best ones for me somehow manage to be interesting enough to divert my mind off whatever rails it was running along, yet not interesting enough to send me to sleep. History programmes work best for me: I recommend “In Our Time”, “A history of the world in 100 objects”, etc. I usually fall asleep about 20 minutes in.
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