Sleep Diary Exercise

How well are you sleeping? Are you getting enough? Are your pre-sleep habits interfering with your sleep? Here is an activity that will help you better understand your sleep, what affects the amount of sleep you get, and how that affects how you feel during the day. This activity requires you to keep a sleep diary for two weeks. The diary is easy to fill out and will only take about 5 minutes per day to complete.

Week One – take note of your usual sleep patterns. Do not change any of your normal routines. Just document it to give yourself an idea of how your sleep patterns and how you feel in the morning.

Week Two – change ONE thing about your sleep habits. Here are some suggestions:

• Go to bed 30 minutes earlier

• Turn your phone off or leave it outside the bedroom

• Don’t watch TV in your bedroom

• Don’t drink any caffeinated drinks at least 3 hours before bed

• Go to bed the same time every night for the week (including the weekend)

• Take note of what happens to your sleep over this week. 

How to complete the diary

• Place the diary in a location where you will remember to fill it out each day (eg. fridge, beside bed, toilet door, etc.). The diary needs to be completed each day for 7 days in a row. There is no set time of the day when this has to be done but first thing in the morning works the best. For each question on the diary answer as best you can remember.

• For each day record the date and day. List the total time of all naps combined for that day.

• Record the time you went to bed and went to sleep on this night. The next day record the time you woke up, the time you got out of bed, the number of times you woke up during the night and the total amount of time you were awake during these awakenings.

• Record how you were woken and what time you got out of bed. 

• To calculate total sleep time, count how many hours and minutes it was between the time you went to sleep and the time you woke up, and then take away the amount of time you were awake during the night. For example: 10:50pm to 7:15am is 8 hours and 25 minutes. Less 20 minutes of wake during the night, gives a total sleep time of 8 hours and 5 minutes. 

• The mood scale involves you rating from 1 to 5 how alert and refreshed you think you are each morning. 

The scale is listed below: 

1 = Very sleepy, irritable and unresponsive. Need to go back to sleep 

2 = Tired and not very enthusiastic. Will need to take it easy today 

3 = Relaxed, not at full alertness. May need a little while to wake up fully 

4 = Able to concentrate, quite happy. Able to handle a normal day 

5 = Active, very happy, full of energy. 

An example entry is provided on the first line of the sleep diary.

 Source: Dr Sarah Biggs, The Ritchie Centre, Monash University, 2015 © Sleep Health Foundation