How to keep a sleep diary: 3 questions for each morning

“How many hours did you sleep last night?” sounds like a simple question, but after a few bad nights the answer gets blurry. Did you wake in the night, or only drift off towards morning? It all runs together. In this post you'll find a sleep diary you can fill in within a few minutes each morning, 3 short questions to ask yourself and how to share the diary with your doctor.

What is a sleep diary, and how does it help?

A sleep diary is a short routine of notes in which you record the previous night every morning, using the same few questions. The aim isn't perfect measurement; it's to see a picture that builds up over a few weeks. A single bad night doesn't say much, but two weeks of entries show more clearly which days are hard.

That picture is especially useful at doctor's appointments. Instead of saying “I haven't been sleeping well lately”, you can show when you went to bed, how many times you woke in the night and how you felt in the mornings. Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust in England also suggests keeping a sleep diary every day for two weeks.

• It makes it easier to describe your sleep based on your own observations.
• It shows you the differences between weekdays and weekends.
• It helps you notice possible links between what you do during the day and how you sleep at night.
• If you've tried a change to your sleep routine, it lets you compare before and after.

3 questions to ask yourself in the morning

Your diary doesn't need to turn into a long form. Short answers to these three questions each morning are often enough to get started:

1. When did you go to bed, and when did you get up? Write down the time you got into bed, the time you think you fell asleep and the time you got up. It doesn't need to be exact to the minute; rough times are fine.
2. How many times did you wake in the night, and how long were you awake? A short note like “twice, once for about half an hour” is enough. If you don't remember, writing “don't remember” is useful information too.
3. How do you feel this morning? Use a simple scale from 1 to 5: 1 means not rested at all, 5 means well rested. If you use the same scale every day, comparing weeks later becomes easier.

These three questions record both how long you slept and how the night felt to you. The two don't always match; sometimes a long but broken night can feel more tiring than a short but deep one.

Notes you can add if you like

Once you've kept up the three questions for a few days, you may want to add a short summary of your day. These are everyday details that can affect sleep, and you can jot them down in a single line in the evening or the next morning:

• Caffeine: Tea, coffee or energy drinks, and roughly what time you had them.
• Exercise: If you went for a walk or did some sport, what time of day it was.
• Screens: How much time you spent on your phone, tablet or TV before bed.
• Naps: If you slept during the day, for how long.
• Dinner and alcohol: Whether you ate a late or heavy meal, or had any alcohol.
• Mood and stress: How did the day go, and was anything on your mind?

If you've started a medicine, or something has changed with one you already take, note that down with the date too. This note helps when you talk the change over with your doctor or pharmacist; make any decisions about medicines together with them.

Tips for keeping the diary going for two weeks

A sleep diary gets its value from being regular. A few simple habits make it easier to complete two weeks:

1. Start on any day. There's no need to wait for Monday; whichever day you start, keep it for seven days and carry on into a second week.
2. Write at the same moment. Pick a fixed point, such as before breakfast or straight after your first coffee.
3. Don't check the clock at night. Looking at the time when you wake up can make it harder to get back to sleep. Writing down what you remember in the morning is enough.
4. Keep it short. Start with the three questions; add extra notes only if they really help you.
5. Look back after two weeks. Read through your entries as a whole and mark the days or situations that keep coming up.

If you've tried a change to your sleep habits, keeping a second two-week diary a few weeks later lets you compare before and after. If you're new to keeping a diary, the small steps in starting a mood journal in five minutes work here too.

When should you talk to your doctor?

A sleep diary isn't an assessment tool; it's a way of organising your own observations. Your doctor is the one who decides what a sleep problem is and what should be done about it. According to the NHS, it's a good idea to see your doctor if:

• changing your sleep habits hasn't helped.
• you've had trouble sleeping for months.
• your insomnia is making your daily life, work or relationships hard.

Take your diary with you to the appointment; a few weeks of entries can say a lot in a short conversation. Before you start taking any medicine or supplement for sleep on your own, ask your doctor or pharmacist. If your sleep problems come with a long-lasting lack of interest or with anxiety, mention that too. If you have thoughts of harming yourself, call your country's emergency helpline straight away.

Keeping sleep notes in Oveluni

Oveluni doesn't have a separate sleep tracking section; you can write about your sleep with A note from the Quick add menu. Gathering your answers to the three morning questions in one note is enough. You can mark how rested you feel in the morning and your energy for the day with the Daily check-in; for a step-by-step walkthrough, see the daily check-in guide.

Your entries appear day by day in the Calendar and Records tabs, and the daily observation chart in the Summaries tab shows your mood and energy entries across a chosen period. If you'd like to focus on your energy as well, the post on tracking your energy level is a good companion. If you want your notes included when you create a PDF report to take to your doctor, you need to turn on “Include notes”; it's off by default. Your entries are stored on this iPhone. Oveluni is coming soon to the App Store.

Sources

1. NHS: Insomnia
2. Oxford Health NHS: Sleep diary