What normal sleep actually looks like

Most people carry a picture of good sleep: out within moments, and unbroken until the alarm. Ordinary, healthy sleep looks different, and knowing what it really looks like can take some of the pressure off a night that does not match the picture.

10–20 min10 to 20 minutes: How long it normally takes to fall asleep

Sleep does not arrive the moment your head touches the pillow, and how long it takes varies from person to person. Dropping off almost instantly is not the mark of a good sleeper it can look like; more often it means the body is short of sleep. So lying quietly for a while with your eyes closed is not a failed attempt at sleep — it is how the night normally begins.

~5About 5: Times a night good sleepers wake up

Healthy adults surface briefly between sleep cycles several times a night, and most of those moments are too short to be remembered. In a study that followed people’s sleep at home, a waking had to last a few minutes, on average, before anyone recalled it the next morning, and that threshold varied a lot from one person to the next. So remembering that you woke usually means only that one of these ordinary wakings ran a little longer than the rest.

MoreMore: You probably slept more than it felt like

When sleep is recorded and compared with what people report the next morning, people with insomnia tend to report less sleep than the recording shows, more so than people with other sleep problems. In a week-long study at home, most people with insomnia reported over an hour less sleep than was recorded, and the recordings put their sleep at about the same length as that of good sleepers. None of this means a bad night is imagined: the tiredness is real and worth taking seriously, and it is the count of hours in your head that tends to come out short.

7 in 107 in 10: People get over a bad patch without it lasting

In a year-long study, more than a thousand adults aged 35 and over, all sleeping well at the start, kept a daily sleep diary. Runs of poor sleep — three or more bad nights a week, lasting anything from two weeks to three months — turned out to be common, and most passed within days or weeks. Only around two in every hundred people went on to develop long-term insomnia.

2 in 32 in 3: People improve with CBT-I, and the effect lasts

CBT-I is a structured programme, usually over several weeks, and it is widely recommended as the first treatment for long-term insomnia. In trials it shortened the time people took to fall asleep and the time they spent awake in the night, and those gains seemed to hold at later check-ups. When to get help explains what it involves and how to ask for it.

4–64 to 6: Sleep cycles in a typical night

Each cycle runs from lighter sleep into deeper sleep and then into REM sleep, the stage most associated with vivid dreaming. Early in the night the cycles hold more deep sleep, and towards morning more REM. The brief wakings described above tend to come at the joins between cycles; there is more in Sleep cycles, and why ninety minutes is only an average.

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If sleep has been difficult for more than three months, or poor sleep comes with low mood, it is worth talking to a doctor. There is good, well-tested help, and When to get help explains what it looks like and what to ask.