Get American Psychological Association Sleep Diary

The sleep diary should be filled out every morning, within approximately an hour of waking, based on the previous night's sleep. Setting a reminder on your phone can help – and keep the recording simple, such as keeping a notes file on your smartphone.

Description. Diaries are a crucial information-gathering tool. They can be used for symptom monitoring during an assessment phase of therapy, symptom monitoring during therapy, or correlating activity with symptoms. This Sleep Diary includes spaces to record sleep onset, wake time, sleep duration, night waking.

The disadvantages of sleep diaries are that inaccurate or incomplete data is provided by the patient, scoring time used by the clinician and scoring errors on the clinician's side (only paper version).

Advertisement The time you went to bed. The time you actually fell asleep, if known. How many times you woke up during the night. How long, each time, it took you to fall back asleep. The time you woke up in the morning. How many naps you took that day, and how long each lasted. The medications you used.

A typical sleep diary covers a two-week period. It is most effective when you complete it daily. A sleep diary allows you to record when you went to bed, woke during the night, and woke in the morning. This will help you understand your sleep pattern and how much sleep you're getting.

Doctors usually advise patients to keep a sleep diary for at least one week. View Source . You may need to update your diary for two weeks or more, though, depending on how it's being used.

Tips for Better Sleep Be consistent. ... Make sure your bedroom is quiet, dark, relaxing, and at a comfortable temperature. Remove electronic devices, such as TVs, computers, and smart phones, from the bedroom. Avoid large meals, caffeine, and alcohol before bedtime. Get some exercise.