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.