Are You Asking What Time Did Your Patients Go to Bed?: Getting the Short Sleep Onset Latency

Abstract

BRIEF COMMUNICATION A few patients diagnosed with insomnia attempt going to bed earlier to obtain adequate sleep and fall asleep less than 30 min, although they often complain about their inability to fall asleep easily. The aim of this study was to explore the association between short sleep latency and patients' sleepwake pattern. All the 99 patients with primary insomnia who were under treatment with benzodiazepine or non-benzodiazepine gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) agonists as sleeping pills were selected. The time to take hypnotics, bedtime, sleep onset, and wake-up times were determined from medical records. Subjects who showed sleep latency of less than 30 min (SL ≤ 30, n = 56) were treated with hypnotics (10:46 pm) before going to bed (11:00 pm) later compared with subjects with sleep latency greater than 30 min (SL > 30 min, n = 43, hypnotic ingestion time, 9:46 pm; bedtime 10:10 pm). Duration from wake-up time to bedtime (WTB) was significantly longer in SL ≤ 30 group (16.5 ± 1.1 h) compared to SL > 30 group (15.8 ± 1.5 h). Long sleep latency was significantly correlated with old age, earlier ingestion of sleeping pills, earlier bedtime, and short duration of WTB (all, p < 0.01). Early bed time in the evening was not associated with short sleep latency. Patients with insomnia may find that delayed bedtime may promote faster sleep.

The DBST index - Discrepancy between desired time in bed and desired total sleep time: A pilot study for the possible new sleep index predicting severity of insomnia

“…Previously, we reported that a longer duration from wake-up time to bedtime predicts a short sleep latency (23). Since greater DBST may decrease the duration from wake-up to bedtime, it may also induce a longer sleep onset latency.…”

“…It is a concept that is similar to the sleep restriction technique of the CBT-I. In a previous study, we reported that 17 hours of wakefulness is required for short sleep latency (23), and administering sleeping pills 7 hours before the waking-up time increases satisfaction with sleeping pills (17). The results showed that around 17 hours of wakefulness is needed for good sleep.…”

“…Process S reflects that sleep can be forced by prolonged wakefulness (21,22). We have previously reported that patients with short sleep latency (≤ 30 minutes) tend to go to bed late in the evening (23). We estimated the duration from wake-up time to bedtime (WTB) among patients with insomnia and reported that 16.5 ± 1.1 hours of WTB in patients with short sleep latency compared to 15.8 ± 1.5 hours of WTB in patients with long sleep latency (> 30 minutes).…”

Discrepancy Between Desired Time in Bed and Desired Total Sleep Time, Insomnia, Depression, and Dysfunctional Beliefs About Sleep Among the General Population

“…Therefore, going to bed early in the evening might increase the TIB during the night. Previously, we have reported that the duration from the wake-up time to bedtime in patients whose sleep latency was ≤30 min was longer than that of patients whose sleep latency was >30 min [ 7 ]. In addition, a longer duration from wake-up time to bedtime predicted a sleep latency ≤30 min in our previous study [ 28 ], which was conducted among cancer patients.…”

Time to Take Sleeping Pills and Subjective Satisfaction among Cancer Patients

“…The desire of cancer patients to go to bed early in the evening may be related with their fatigue symptoms, which is common and can impair the circadian rhythm of these patients. 24 We can speculate that the late wake up time in the dissatisfied group may have been from fatigue. We did not measure the fatigue symptom in this study.…”