Why You Should Use A Sleep Diary

Why You Should Use A Sleep Diary

You have trouble sleeping, but you’re not entirely certain about what’s going on.

Is it something you’re eating? Are you stressed or anxious? Do you have insomnia? Are you spending too much time on your phone before bed? Is it your partner keeping you awake?

Perhaps you feel like the sleep you do get feels unrestorative or as if it’s just never enough?

If the quality of your sleep is below that you dream about, the first step is to discover what might be stopping you from getting a better night’s sleep.

Improving your sleep patterns can take time but by keeping a sleep diary, you may be able to discover the root cause of your nightly troubles quicker.

What is a sleep diary?

When you wake up feeling drowsy, exhausted, and unrefreshed, you sometimes tend to forget your sleep experience during the night.

A sleep diary or sleep journal is a self-reflection tool that usually includes information about your sleep and other behaviours that are likely to impact your sleep quality and duration. It’s a great first step to help you learn more about how much and how well you sleep.

By keeping a diary for one to two weeks, any sleep patterns or factors preventing you from achieving a good night’s rest may be uncovered.

What to write in your sleep diary?

It’s not necessary to write in an actual diary or journal, a piece of paper is fine.

If you prefer to go paperless, you can create a table easily in the notes of your smartphone.

It’s important to complete your diary every day. Aim to fill out your sleep diary within an hour following waking so that any thoughts and feelings from the previous night are fresh in your mind.

When you wake up, answer the following questions:

  • What time did you get into bed?
  • How long did it take you to fall asleep?
  • How many times did you wake up?
  • What do you think disturbed your sleep (restless legs, anxious, stress etc.)
  • How long did you spend awake during the night?
  • What time did you wake up in the morning?
  • Did you get up immediately? How long did it take you to get out of bed?
  • Total time spent asleep?
  • How well do you think you slept?
  • Did you nap during the day? How many times and for how long was each nap?
  • Did you consume any alcoholic or caffeinated drinks? At what time?
  • Did you take any over the counter or prescription medications?
  • Did you exercise? For how long and at what time?
  • Activities performed an hour before bed (intercourse, conflict, television, reading etc)?

Tips for using your sleep diary

  1. Fill it out first thing in the morning. Your recall of the night before will be best first thing in the morning - It may help to place your sleep diary and a pencil or pen close to your bed so that it’s close within reach.

  2. It doesn’t have to be precise. We don’t want to create additional anxiety and have you staring at the clock. It’s best to estimate timings so don’t become fixated on being exact.

  3. Keep an open mind. Don’t be too critical of yourself if you didn’t get a great night’s sleep. There is no pass or fail. Sleep diary entries are simply additional information that can help you create goals for improvement.

  4. Don’t rely on external sleep trackers to fill out your diary. 

    The latest sleep tracking technology including wearable devices or smartphone apps aren’t always accurate. You should try to record the sleep that you remember and how you feel about it, not what your sleep watch has recorded.

3 ways a sleep diary can help improve sleep

  1. It can help provide a greater understanding of your sleep patterns and habits

Your sleep issues may not actually be the result of a sleep disorder or illness, but instead simply be due to bad sleep habits.

Consuming caffeine late in the day, drinking alcohol regularly before bedtime, scrolling mindlessly on your phone or just having bad sleep hygiene in general can prevent you from sleeping well.

If you notice a negative pattern that could be corrected by your conscious lifestyle choices, try making changes for a week and see how your sleep performance the following week progresses.

  1. You will get proactive about you sleep

By becoming more aware about your sleep, you’ll begin to learn how important it really is in your life and the role it can play.

Simple switches such as darkening your room, consuming fewer caffeinated beverages before sleep, or slowly sipping on a chamomile tea whilst reading a book instead of passively watching television are all changes that can help promote sleep.

Perhaps you discover that working out late at night makes it difficult to sleep because of a higher heart rate and start experimenting more regularly with early morning workouts to encourage better sleep.

Ultimately, when you begin monitoring and keeping record of your sleep, you start to care about your sleep, and do more of the things that support it, and less of the things that prevent it.

  1. You can monitor the effectiveness of sleep aids

If you’ve been keeping a sleep journal for a while, and still haven’t noticed positive results, you may want to consider the next step: utilising a sleep aid.

Our sleep-inducing and relaxing weighted blankets are a common tool used to help improve sleep.

Like a baby being swaddled, our weighted blankets harness the sensation of deep-touch-pressure and mimic the sensation of being hugged.

Reducing stress-inducing cortisol levels and increasing sleep-inducing melatonin, the hormone that signals to your body when it’s time to fall asleep, our weighted blankets can help you to effortlessly fall into a more natural, deep, and restorative sleep.

By using a sleep diary, you'll be able to compare the effectiveness of your sleep, pre and post sleep aid use, re-affirming any positive feelings that have already been experienced when using our weighted blanket.

You can learn more about the science behind our weighted blankets here. 
August 04, 2021 — Drift Team
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