The falling asleep stage is a state between sleeping and waking, known as the first stage of sleep, which relaxes both the body and the mind of the person to allow the person to transition into the most restful sleep possible. During the falling asleep stage, the sleeper still reacts to external stimuli and thus partially startles back up from sleep, however, during this stage, the sleeper’s pulse rate, breathing, and brain wave activity already slow down, which is related to the production of the sleep hormone melatonin in the pineal gland. If the falling asleep stage lasts longer than about 20 minutes, there is usually a sleep disorder, although in this form it is often due to increased caffeine consumption, excessive emotional excitement or extreme physical exertion.
What is the falling asleep phase?
The falling asleep stage is a state between sleeping and waking, known as the first stage of sleep. Sleep medicine refers to the falling asleep stage as the first stage of sleep. This stage is followed by the light sleep stage, the two stages of deep sleep, and the dreaming stage, also known as REM sleep. Thus, the falling asleep phase is the lightest sleep stage of all and is most likely to be understood as a state between waking and sleeping. During the falling asleep phase, the sleeper is still aware of the sounds and visual or tactile stimuli around him, but his breathing becomes more regular, his brain waves run more slowly, his pulse slows, and his muscles relax. Many people feel this relaxation in the form of twitching movements in which the last of the tension is released from the body. Some also have the feeling of falling into an abyss during the phase of falling asleep. This feeling is mainly related to the organ of balance, which often gets confused during the falling asleep phase.
Function and task
During the falling asleep phase, the entire body comes to rest and the way is paved for the sleep phases that follow. The pineal gland produces the sleep hormone melatonin for this purpose. The production of this hormone starts as soon as the optic nerves transmit to the hypothalamus the perception of nocturnal circumstances. During the phase of falling asleep, the production of the sleep hormone reaches its climax and the sleeper is transferred to a state between wakefulness and sleep. During this intermediate stage, sensory illusions often occur, sometimes startling the sleeper back to sleep and thus interrupting the falling asleep phase. Unlike the waking phases, the sleeper does not consciously perceive the falling asleep phase. The fall asleep phase thus serves to transition into actual sleep. It helps the sleeper to let go of the day and enter sleep in a relaxed state. The phase of falling asleep is therefore highly relevant for the general state of health of the person. Sleep serves to regenerate cells and organs, recharge energies and process the experiences of the day. Without the falling asleep phase, none of this would be satisfactory, because only a relaxed body can enter into a truly restful sleep.
Diseases and ailments
On average, a healthy phase of falling asleep lasts about 20 minutes. Latencies that deviate from this can have disease value and often refer to sleep disorders. This is especially true for chronically abnormal fall asleep times. On the other hand, one-time deviating values are completely normal. In particular, significantly longer periods of falling asleep in a chronic course are often related to a sleep disorder. Sleep physicians often speak of insomnia in this context. In many cases, sleep disturbances and insomnia are characterized and thus behavior-dependent. For example, some people need certain rituals to find their way to sleep because it is a habit. In other cases, falling asleep disorders have to do with the inability to let go of the past day and, in this case, are a psychological phenomenon that may also be related to mental disorders. This form of insomnia is often perceived by patients as an intolerable restriction of their own quality of life, as they are often additionally struck by tormenting thoughts while lying awake for hours on end. Somewhat less frequently than a psychological cause, a difficulty in falling asleep is due to an actual physical phenomenon, such as underproduction of the sleep hormone due to abnormal activity of the pineal gland.Sometimes physical pain is also causally related to a falling asleep condition, or the patient is treated with certain medications for an actual condition that makes it difficult for him or her to fall asleep. Feelings of falling or other hallucinations during the falling asleep phase, on the other hand, do not have any disease value. This form of disorder is called myoclonia and affects about 70 percent of people over the course of a lifetime. If myoclonia occur frequently or particularly intensively and thus regularly wake the sleeper during the phase of falling asleep, then emotional excitement, caffeine or heavy, physical work during the previous day often have something to do with the phenomenon. This form of sleep disturbance is also harmless and does not require further investigation. In particular, sports activities shortly before bedtime can cause problems falling asleep. Therefore, experts advise not to schedule sports activities for the evening hours, if possible. If the patient experiences daytime sleepiness due to problems falling asleep or is otherwise impaired in his or her daily routine, then monitoring in a sleep laboratory may be appropriate under certain circumstances. An EMG can measure potentials during the fall asleep period during a sleep laboratory visit and analyze them for abnormal phenomena.
