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How Long Should It Take to Fall Asleep (For Better Vacation)

The time it takes for you to fall asleep during travel or on your vacation is an essential aspect as sleep is crucial for the welfare of the body. Most people are however anxious about how long it takes after they get to bed for them to sleep. While some only take a couple of minutes, others are worried about taking too long, sometimes up to a few hours.

So, how long should it take to fall asleep? Well, sleep latency is the amount of time it takes you to fall asleep. Several factors determine sleep latency either shortening or increasing the length of time.

Appropriate Time for Falling Asleep

Even though sleeping immediately after you get into the bed seems satisfactory, people who take a short time before falling asleep exhibit a healthy sleep cycle. Typically, it takes such a person an average of 7 minutes to fall asleep(the fast).

If it takes you more than 7 minutes but less than 20 minutes, then there is no cause for alarm; you are still within the range of the normal sleep cycle. However, anything more than this shows that something could be wrong within your body and it’s a way of the body expressing the possible issue.

On the other hand, instantly sleeping after you bury your head into the pillow also reveals a probable condition. Identifying the issues can be a good start towards finding a solution to your distorted sleeping habits.

How to Fall Asleep Faster

It should now worry you if you take up to an hour or even more to fall asleep. These moments of sleeplessness are accompanied by tossing in the bed and a series of thoughts. Sometimes you get to the bed, fall asleep as recommended and then after an hour or so you start dreaming. Such issues indicate conditions some of which can be remedied.

What should you do to reduce sleep latency? Here are some of the causative conditions and their possible remedies.

Avoid oversleeping

The most probable reason you are taking too long to sleep is that you continue sleeping even after you have already slept enough. While different people have different sleep requirements, an average adult requires around 7 hours of sleep time. Sleeping more than this means that your brain will not be ready to shut off next moment you try to sleep immediately. This problem could be amplified by consistent oversleeping more so if you are not involved in tiresome tasks during the day.

You need to schedule your sleeping time and ensure that anytime you wake up feeling relaxed and fresh you do not go back to sleep. Otherwise sleeping more than you require, it may not be enjoyable as you are only trying to push yourself to sleep.

Manage stress

Stress besides other factors such as medications is the most significant contributor to the insomnia condition. This condition eventually leads to fatal disorders such as heart-related diseases, depression, and diabetes. Most people lack sleep due to numerous thoughts and worries running through their mind whenever they try to sleep.

The only solution to this issue is finding ways to help you manage your stress levels. You might consider visiting a counselor if your stressors are related to your social life. A therapist might also assist you in prescribing medications that can help relieve the insomniac condition.

Take a shower before sleeping

Poor hygiene can also contribute to lack of sleep leading to insomnia. When your body is dirty or sweaty, you might experience discomfort thereby having troubles sleeping. This sweatiness might not be as a result of the day’s activities, otherwise eating heavily at night or drinking caffeinated drinks before going to sleep might result in an increased amount of energy in your body.

Therefore, you should ensure that after a long day, you take a shower to help your mind relax ready for sleep. Besides, you might consider minimizing the rate of caffeine intake more so sometimes before going to bed.

Avoiding sleeping too fast

While sleeping fast is a sign of a normal sleeping cycle, sleeping too fast should also be a concern. If it takes you less than seven minutes to sleep, then there could be something erroneous in you.

Mostly, lack of enough sleep could be contributing to your short sleep latency. If you are sleeping for a few hours, your body remains inactive during the day, and at night you sleep right away when you get to bed. Lack of enough sleep can be fatal to body healthy; it results in exposure to sickness, as well as disrupting your focus ability.

Resolving this issue requires you to get enough sleep. You can achieve this by scheduling your daily activities and manage them to fit your day’s program. You can also schedule your sleeping time, assigning more time on your day offs like the weekends, and ensure you adhere to the plan.

Conclusion

While considering unraveling these sleep cycle distorters, you should also consider external factors. Technological devices such as mobile phones and laptops keep your brain active depriving you of sleep. If you consider all these aspects, you will ultimately attain average sleep latency.

Enjoy your trip or your vacation!

Reference:

How long does it take you to fall asleep, after you get into bed (Reddit)

How To Fall Asleep Fast (Bestmattress.reviews)

How to Make a Baby Shower Unforgettable

Planning and hosting a great baby shower will take some creative thinking and planning. Most people are used to the tired blue and pink themed parties, which can be quite dull. You need to up the game if you want to have a truly memorable one.

Baby showers are a tradition for pregnant mothers, and they have become somewhat of a cliché, the same games, toys, and even presents. Here are a few tricks that can help you make the next baby shower you throw an unforgettable one;

Start by creating a theme:

Personalize the baby shower to the new mother’s interests. Find out what her favorite hobbies are, and plan the shower around that. You can include this theme in the invites, the games and even the decorations for the day.

Have you ever thought of scrapbooks? Does the new mother love them? This is just an idea; you could make each guest design a scrapbook, then gather the pages to create a great baby book.

Does she love writing? This is yet another idea; have each guest write a letter for the new baby and keep them together as a special keepsake.

This will be a day that will be memorable for the new mother, the guests, and even the newborn baby.

The theme should also include the dressing code. You could have everyone dress in a specific color scheme that will stand out and make the mother totally surprised. So, if you are wondering what to wear to a baby shower, you will be sorted by the theme.

Get some good entertainment:

You will need to rev up on the entertainment if you want this to be a great day. We have already mentioned the tired old games, so, do not do that. Look for exciting new ideas to keep everyone entertained and happy.

Search the internet for baby shower game ideas, talk to the new mom about what she would like to do, and even invite the guests to give you suggestions on the type of games they will enjoy playing on the day of the shower.

Here are a few suggestions: Look in the party books section of the library for some great ideas, make jigsaw puzzles cut out of cardboard or old photographs, then have your guests put them back together again.

In case your guests have a great sense of humor, try having an air band competition, but here is the twist, let this be from children’s lullabies, or some Disney theme songs. Let the guests perform and even have a panel of judges. You could give out prizes for the best performers. A baby shower definitely doesn’t have to be dull and scruffy.

Consider the venue:

Did you know that you do not have to plan a baby shower in someone’s home? Whilst this will depend on your budget, if you have some money to work with, you can move the shower to a different location, even a hotel ballroom to make it the more special.

Many hotels have private dining rooms you can rent as well. This will save you the trouble of having to cook for the guests as you can directly order for food from the hotel.

If the weather is good, you could even do it outside! A nice tent can do, or a compound or a park shelter house.

Food for the shower:

A traditional baby shower will consist of a cake, nuts, food, mints, etc. You could take it a step further and incorporate the theme into the food you shall serve.

You could serve tea with tiny sandwiches, sweets, and savories. A salad buffet with all the necessary trimmings which includes crusty rolls and long glasses of iced tea or lemonade can make for delicious treats and refreshing drinks, especially during summer.

Having dips, cheese plates and spreads with baguettes, and hearty tortilla chips can go a long way in making nibbling snacks during the shower.

You could think like a baby and serve some baby vegetables with dip on a platter.

The food you serve will highly depend on your budget, and if it allows, be as extravagant as possible, as food helps in livening up the party and making it interesting. Most people will even spend most of their time discussing food.

The cake:

If you want to see goosebumps on your guests, make the cake unforgettable and unique. This is the culinary centerpiece of the baby shower, and it will be more than just desert. Cakes make the party, and those designed for celebrating a new baby tend to be extremely adorable.

You should ensure that the cake is not gross. There have been baby showers with weird looking cakes of women giving birth. This can be inappropriate for some people, so, make it classy, beautiful and delicious of course.

Flowers and décor:

Fill the room with flowers. Make it as beautiful as you possibly can, as you will be celebrating a new baby. Let the flowers make the party. Flowers are actually the ancient symbol of fertility, and they will, therefore, make the room look feminine and classy.

Also, decorate the tables with banners, tableware, balloons and lots of other decorations that are festive and keeping with the theme. This will really impress your guests.

Be emotional:

Baby showers are meant to be emotional, so, do not be afraid to have some tears in the room. You could have the new mother talk about the journey to being a mother, have the guests talk about their experience of giving birth, allocate some time for advising the new mother, etc.

Ensure you do not make scary for a new mother who has not has children before, by discussing things such as what to expect in the delivery room. This can be scary and probably inappropriate. We want the new mother to be happy not sad and frightened.

Keep it light and interesting so she can be able to learn something from the shower about motherhood and what to expect from the whole experience.

Give each guest a party favor:

The final detail of the baby shower will be to give each guest a memento so they can always remember the shower.

Prepare the party favors in advance, so you make them as thoughtful and interesting as the baby shower was. Here are some suggestions;

You could hand out some seeds so the guests can plant them on the day the baby is born. Request them to watch the flowers bloom through each of the baby’s milestones.

Put up a recipe book with food that was served during the shower.

You could also have a professional poet compose a poem for each guest and have it framed and given as a gift. This is not as expensive as you may think, as picture frames are not too expensive and you could also use some inexpensive paper for the poem as well.

Summary:

Planning and hosting a baby shower does not have to be a mundane task. Keep all of your creative juices flowing so you can come up with a remarkable event that everyone will not only enjoy, but also remember for years to come. Do not forget to remind the guests to come with presents for the unborn baby as well, and request them to make them unique so they do not end up with similar gifts. You could also opt to use a registry so you do not end up with gifts that the mother will not even use.