CBS News
How to fall asleep fast: Three ways to get a better night’s sleep now
If you have trouble falling asleep within a reasonable amount of time (ie. before dawn), you’re not alone. In 2023 the Cleveland Clinic reported that around one in every three adults in the US deal with at least some symptoms of insomnia. Sleep deprivation has links to a whole assortment of chronic health issues, from high blood pressure to depression, so it’s important to improve your habits if you’re not getting enough sleep.
So what’s the answer for combatting those sleepless nights?
Getting better sleep isn’t just about your mattress — although that is important. Pairing yourself with the right mattress can be a big, glaring missing puzzle piece if you struggle to stay comfortable at night. There’s a reason the Saatva Classic mattress (currently marked down $299) is one of America’s best-selling online luxury hybrid mattresses, after all.
The No. 1 thing you can do to improve the quality (and quantity) of your sleep each night is to take charge. Here’s how you can fall asleep faster and enjoy a better night’s sleep now.
Three things you need to get a better night’s sleep now
There are a number of useful tips and tricks out there for improving sleep quality. From deep breathing exercises to consistent schedules, here are three useful techniques for getting a better night’s sleep.
Practice relaxation techniques
If you want to fall asleep faster at night, reducing stress around bedtime can help. Mindfulness has been known to work for people who struggle with insomnia. Mindfulness is essentially a radical form of self-awareness and there are a few relaxation tricks that are effective at helping people to fall asleep faster.
Here are three useful techniques to help you relax at bedtime. Consider trying one out to improve your sleep quality:
- Progressive muscle relaxation: Also known as deep muscle relaxation, this method puts you in control of your body. Release tension by focusing on one muscle group after another as you lie in bed. The goal is to tense each muscle for five to 10 seconds, release, and then take a few deep breaths. Start with your face then move on to your shoulders, chest, etc. This can help to alleviate bodily stress.
- Four-seven-eight breathing method: Simpler than progressive muscle relaxation, this breathing method can either be an easy technique to try out. Everything you need to know is in the name of this cyclical breathing technique: Inhale for four seconds, hold your breath for seven seconds, and then exhale deeply for eight seconds. Try to position your tongue behind your upper front teeth and making a “whoosh” sound for each exhale. Repeat this several times to regulate stress and reach a state of relaxation faster.
- Military technique: As you can guess by the name, this last technique is all about efficiency. If you want to get to sleep at night as quickly as possible, the military method can be your best friend. Once you’re comfortable, start focusing on individual body parts. Relax your jaw, eyelids, and brow. Drop your shoulders and take deep breaths to relax your chest. As you move down your body, try to visualize a peaceful setting. Recognizing and deterring intrusive thoughts can be difficult at first, especially if you deal with a lot of anxiety around bedtime, but it’s an important part of the equation. Get this whole process down pat, and you could fall asleep within minutes.
These relaxation techniques work best when you’re comfortable in bed. If you feel like it’s a challenge to find the ideal sleep position on your mattress, it may be time for an upgrade. For unparalleled comfort, we recommend the plush DreamCloud Hybrid mattress. Shop this mattress today and save 40% thanks to DreamCloud’s ongoing Presidents’ Day sale.
Commit to a consistent sleep schedule
Typically, it takes an adult with a relatively good sleep schedule 15 to 20 minutes to fall asleep. If you’re not already, you should also buffer that time with a calming winddown period before you hit the hay each night. This could be anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours, so try to find what works best for you — and stick to it.
Adhering to a consistent sleep schedule can be beneficial to your health, leading to better sleep quality as well as reduced time spent tossing and turning in bed at night. It may be a bit different for everyone, but the body follows its own internal clock. This nearly 24-hour cycle is known as your circadian rhythm. Once your body gets used to falling asleep and waking up at similar times day after day, it can become much easier to fall asleep faster.
In addition to planning out one or two hours of winddown time, plus another 15 to 20 minutes to fall asleep, how much time should you carve out of your schedule for sleep? The recommended amount of sleep is different depending on your age group, but adults generally need between seven and nine hours each night, while younger age groups tend to need a few more hours than that.
Balance your nights with healthy habits during the day
Cementing healthy routines at night isn’t the only trick to improving your sleep quality. If you find yourself restless or wide awake while trying to fall asleep at night, this may be a sign you need more daytime activity to balance out a good night’s sleep.
Light exposure during the day has been shown to improve sleep duration. Fitting in a bit of exercise during the day can also help tire you out and better prepare your body for a restful sleep. If you can, limiting caffeine intake can also help regulate stress.
CBS News
“Pink cocaine” is the latest street drug. This team of researchers has been warning the public about it for a year.
The death of music star Liam Payne. Sex trafficking allegations against Sean “Diddy” Combs. A deadly car crash involving an Instagram model. Many Americans have only recently learned of the drug known as “pink cocaine” from a deluge of celebrity horror stories. Joseph Palamar, an associate professor of population health at NYU Langone, would say they are late to the party.
“A lot of people just think it’s this new powder that’s going around,” Palamar said. “It’s a pretty pink powder, and everyone’s starting to use it, when it really started increasing was around mid-2023.”
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“The chatter increases before a lot of poisonings occur”
When Palamar first heard of pink cocaine, his team immediately scoured posts on Reddit as part of his research for the National Drug Early Warning System. The organization specializes in narcotics surveillance and collects data on drugs that could rise in popularity and lethality.
“We’ve looked at other drugs, and what we found … is that a lot of times the chatter increases before a lot of poisonings occur,” said Palamar.
Palamar explained there’s a whole community called “Psychonauts,” in which people use novel drugs or induce “altered states of consciousness” and post about their experiences. For drug use, Palamar equated it to a diary to alert people to the effects of drugs.
National Drug Early Warning System
Standing in front of a chart that resembles a stock rally on Wall Street, Palamar explained how each Reddit post about pink cocaine represents a data point he uses to better predict drug trends and warn the public.
“When we detect a trend, we alert everybody we could possibly think of,” he said. “We alert departments of health, academics, people who use. We want to spread our information pretty widely in order to prevent use. It’s concerning because it’s already high, and it’s increasing. We already have dozens of people talking about it per day.”
The warning system first issued an alert on pink cocaine in February 2023, when researchers noticed a spike in chatter from Redditors. That chatter nearly doubled to more than 30 posts per day by the summer.
National Drug Early Warning System
“It appears that the chatter on average is now higher,” Palamar said. “It’s more consistent. We don’t have dips as low as previous years.”
CBS News reached out to Reddit for a comment on the research. A spokesperson said its policies ban the buying or selling drugs, and most conversations on its message boards are warning other Reddit users about pink cocaine.
Similar trends emerged with carfentanyl, a synthetic opioid 100 times more potent than its lethal sister-drug fentanyl. Nearly 80,000 Americans have died from poisonings linked to carfentanyl in the past two years, according to the National Institute of Drug Abuse.
“Don’t play with this stuff… It’s a powerful substance.”
One pink cocaine user, who takes the drug at least once a month, agreed to speak with CBS News without revealing her identity. She said she tests each batch for fentanyl but admits she doesn’t otherwise know the contents of the drug mixtures she’s buying.
“You don’t know what is in it every time.” she said. “You don’t know what is inside … there are the ingredients that make you dance. There are ingredients that can make you feel more chill. There are ingredients can make you feel more trippy.”
Those unknowns — about the substance and the high — pushed Frank Tarantino, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Agency in New York, to issue an urgent warning to CBS News New York.
“When people are seeking pink cocaine and they think they’re buying pink cocaine, they’re actually buying a drug that’s laced with fentanyl and they have no idea and they’re overdosing and dying,” Tarantino said.
The anonymous user who spoke to CBS News said she has found fentanyl in her own supply.
“I gave it back,” she said. “It’s dangerous.”
Pink cocaine is not cocaine
Pink cocaine is often confused for real cocaine. Tusi, the other street name for the substance, is often confused for the synthetic psychedelic 2C-B. It’s neither.
Pink cocaine is a combination of other drugs. It is pink in color due to the addition of food coloring, and sometimes strawberry or other flavoring, according to the National Capital Poison Center.
Officials said it is most commonly used by young people in the club scene. Pink cocaine is usually either ingested in pill form or snorted as a powder. Rarely, it is injected.
An analysis by CBS News found 99.5% of pink powder seized by the Drug Enforcement Agency is a mixture of ketamine and other drugs, which can include fentanyl, according to DEA data from nearly 1,000 seizures.
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