Course Content
Sleep Well Coach Training
About Lesson

The old fashioned way of tracking sleep is with a sleep diary also referred to as sleep logs. This can be more informative than a sleep wearable tracker and it’s what many sleep specialists recommend.

Sleep diaries can collate information such as:

  • Time went to bed
  • Time lights out
  • Waking up in the night and what time (sleep interruptions)
  • What time woke up
  • What time got out of bed
  • If you used an alarm
  • How many times snoozed alarm (and went back to sleep between the alarm going off again)
  • Whether you felt rested, refreshed from sleep (perceived sleep quality)
  • How many hours slept (sleep quantity)
  • How many hours in bed asleep v awake (sleep efficiency)
  • If you napped during the day

They can also gather lifestyle information such as:

  • The use of alcohol
  • If you ate late
  • If you exercised during the day
  • How stressed or anxious you’re feeling
  • What medications you’re using
  • What time you stopped using electronic devices
  • If you had a relaxing wind down hour and what you did
  • Your mood 
  • How much energy you had during the day
  • Any factors which disturbed your sleep

They can also be used to make note of the bedroom environment such as:

  • Temperature
  • Darkness
  • Noise 
  • Tidy room
  • The use of scents

From this data collected you can ask questions such as:

  • Am I allowing myself enough time to sleep?
  • Do I have a consistent sleep bedtime?
  • How much sleep do I need to feel good throughout the day?
  • What factors affect my sleep and make me sleep poorly?
  • Do I spend a lot of time in bed but not sleeping?
  • Can I identify what is causing me to sleep poorly and/or wake me during the night?
  • With patterns can I notice?

I have created an example of a sleep diary (see Section: Sleep Coaching Template – Awareness) and a mood/sleep diary (see Section: Sleep Coaching Template – Body + Mind) see PDFs below and they are used within the sleep coaching programme template. You can use them with your clients or adapt them as needed. To get a good idea of patterns and behaviour it’s worth keeping a diary for a minimum of 2 weeks although my suggestion would be your clients keep a diary for the whole time they work with you as it will, hopefully, show sleep improvement.