Almost every course of sessions I run starts with a sleep diary. People are often surprised by how little it asks: five lines, written once each morning, in under a minute.
Why a diary and not a tracker
Wearable trackers are good at counting steps. They are much less reliable at telling light sleep from quiet wakefulness, and many people end up more anxious about their numbers than about their nights. A diary records what matters for treatment: what you did, and how the night felt to you.
It also takes the guessing out of a bad week. When you are tired, every night feels the same. On paper, you can see that Tuesday was fine, that the late coffee on Thursday mattered, or that the weekend lie-in shifted everything.
The five lines
Write these each morning, not during the night. Estimates are fine. Don't check the clock to fill it in.
Into bed: the time you got into bed, and the time you turned the light off if it was different.
Fell asleep: roughly how long it took.
Awake in the night: how many times, and for how long in total.
Out of bed: the time you woke for the last time, and the time you actually got up.
The night, in a word: a rating from 1 to 5, and anything worth noting (alcohol, a late meal, a hard conversation, a nap).
The diary is not a test. A messy week on paper is more useful than a tidy week in your head.
What we look for
After one or two weeks we have enough to work with. We look at the gap between time in bed and time asleep, how regular your wake time is, and what happens to the night after a nap or a lie-in. From that we choose one change for the next week, and the diary shows whether it helped.
The diary is also how we know when to stop. When the nights are steadier and you no longer need to think about sleep much, the diary goes in a drawer.
Try this week
Put a notebook and a pen next to your kettle or coffee maker, not by the bed.
Fill in the five lines each morning for seven days, including the weekend.
At the end of the week, circle the best night and the worst one. Look at what happened the day before each.
If you would like a printable version, I can send one after a free call.
This article is general information, not medical advice, and it doesn’t replace an assessment. If you snore loudly, stop breathing at night or fall asleep while driving, see your doctor first. In a crisis, call 112.
