Keeping a Sleep Diary: Why It Matters and How to Get Started
- Michelle Olaithe
- 21 hours ago
- 3 min read
"Sleep is that golden chain that ties health and our bodies together"
-Thomas Dekker.
Sleep, health, and mood are closely connected. Having insufficient or poor quality sleep can cause you to be more irritable and feel stressed. It’s also harder to concentrate and get on with daily activities.
By contrast, good quality, regularised sleep is beneficial for your mood and health. During sleep, your brain washes out metabolites from the day and replenishes energy supplies. Keeping a sleep diary is a practical way that you can take a record of what affects your sleep.
A sleep diary is a tool for improving your sleep, recording factors such as the times you went to bed, what you did before bed, and the quality of your sleep. This can help you self-help and modify things that you feel you can change or give you a solid information base to take to your healthcare professional.
People with insomnia, disrupted sleep (e.g., new baby), shift workers, or those undergoing sleep therapy can benefit from keeping a sleep diary. This blog post runs you through keeping a diary and has a downloadable diary for you to start recording.
What Is a Sleep Diary?
A sleep diary is a structured log of sleep-related information that you record daily. It takes around 2-3 minutes to complete each day and you keep the diary beside your bed, completing certain questions in the morning and some at night.
After 1-2 weeks, patterns begin to emerge.
Clinicians and individuals use sleep diaries to identify sleep issues and then discuss what needs to be changed. One change is made at a time so as to be able to record the differences this makes to your sleep.
Why Keep a Sleep Diary?
Your diary will help you to increase your awareness of:
Your sleep patterns and habits.
Help you to pinpoint factors contributing to sleep disruption (e.g., caffeine, screen time, stress).
It will also:
Facilitate communication with sleep specialists or psychologists, recording the details that are easy to forget when
Is the formal record kept when you work with a sleep psychologist using cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I).
Can track progress when implementing sleep hygiene changes.
Tips for Using a Sleep Diary Effectively
Like sleep, the tip to keeping an effective sleep diary is to keep it regular!
If you’re ready to make a record of your sleep you’ll need to fill it out each morning—don’t rely on memory later. Make sure you’re honest and consistent, not perfect. And, to aid these factors, set a reminder or pair it with an existing habit like brushing teeth.
It really doesn’t matter what version you use -paper, an app, tracker - whatever fits your routine!
What to Do With Your Sleep Diary
Once you have kept your sleep diary for a week or two, review your sleep diary for patterns.
Did you have late bedtimes, long sleep latency, fragmented sleep?
Was there external noise, your bed was uncomfortable, you had a glass of wine?
Did the dog get on and off your bed, the baby wake you, your partner snored?
If you’re feeling lost, then bring your sleep diary to a psychologist or GP. If you’re feeling like you have capacity and interest, you can experiment with changing some things yourself.
Use your sleep diary to guide changes—sleep hygiene, routine tweaks, therapy goals – and then continue to track what changes happen to your sleep.
Free Download or Tracker?
We have put together a free downloadble sleep diary. We've made it a Word document so that you can edit it on your computer or print it.
This is the same one we use with clients.
However, if you prefer trackers or apps, a study that examined 11 consumable sleep trackers, including 5 wearables (Google Pixel Watch, Galaxy Watch 5, Fitbit Sense 2, Apple Watch 8, and Oura Ring 3), 3 nearables (Withings Sleep Tracking Mat, Google Nest Hub 2, and Amazon Halo Rise), and 3 airables (SleepRoutine, SleepScore, and Pillow), and compared their performance to in-lab sleep study, suggests several may be more accurate than others.
The Google Pixel Watch, Galaxy Watch 5, and Fitbit Sense 2 demonstrated competitive performance among wearables, while Amazon Halo Rise and SleepRoutine stood out among nearables and airables, respectively. This study included males and females between 19 and 70 years of age, and recorded a variety of sleep features.
Conclusion
Understanding your sleep through data gives you the ability to change your sleep. A sleep diary is a simple but powerful way to track your sleep and step toward better sleep health.
Try it for one week and see what you discover!
Michelle, on behalf of the SleepPsychologist team.
This article is for information purposes only. Please refer to the full disclaimer and terms and conditions before making use of this information.