How to Keep a Sleep Diary: What to Record, With a Simple Template

Learning how to keep a sleep diary is one of the simplest, most useful things you can do if your sleep isn't right. It takes a couple of minutes each morning, costs nothing, and gives you and your GP real information instead of a vague "I sleep badly". This guide covers why sleep diaries are used, exactly what to record, a simple template you can copy, how long to keep one going, and how to read the patterns.

The short answer: each morning, within about an hour of getting up, write down when you went to bed, when you tried to sleep, roughly how long it took, how often and how long you woke, when you finally woke, when you got up, and how well you slept. Add a few notes on caffeine, alcohol, naps and anything unusual. Keep it going for at least a week or two. Use rough estimates, not clock-watching, and take it to your GP if sleep problems persist.

This guide is general information, not medical advice.

Why keep a sleep diary

Memory is a poor record of sleep. One terrible night tends to colour the whole week, and good nights get forgotten. A diary records each night while it's fresh.

Healthdirect says keeping a sleep diary is a good way to track your symptoms, and doctors may ask you to keep one to understand your sleep patterns (source). In cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia, sleep diaries are the weekly "homework" used to track patterns and monitor progress, according to the Sleep Health Foundation (source). If you're heading towards CBT for insomnia, starting a diary now saves time later.

What to record each morning

Sleep researchers developed a standard format called the Consensus Sleep Diary so that diaries could be compared. Its core version asks nine things (source):

1. What time you got into bed.
2. What time you tried to go to sleep. This is often later than getting into bed, if you read or scroll first.
3. How long it took to fall asleep. A rough guess is fine.
4. How many times you woke during the night, not counting your final waking.
5. How long those wakings lasted in total.
6. What time you finally woke up.
7. What time you got out of bed.
8. How well you slept, rated on a simple scale such as very poor to very good.
9. Comments. Anything unusual: illness, a late work shift, a crying baby, a noisy neighbour.

The researchers recommend filling it in in the morning, within one hour of getting out of bed. That's soon enough to remember, but not so soon that you're half asleep.

Extras worth noting

The core questions describe your night. A few extras help explain it:

• Caffeine: what and when, especially after midday. See caffeine and sleep.
• Alcohol: how much and how close to bed.
• Naps: when and how long, including dozing on the couch.
• Exercise: what time of day.
• Medicines: anything new, or anything taken to help you sleep.
• Mood or stress: a word or two is enough.
• Daytime sleepiness: did you struggle to stay awake anywhere?

A simple template

Copy this into a notebook or a spreadsheet, one row per night.

Date	Into bed	Tried to sleep	Time to fall asleep	Wakings (number, total time)	Final wake	Out of bed	Quality (1 to 5)	Caffeine, alcohol, naps, notes
Mon	10:15 pm	10:45 pm	~40 min	2, ~30 min	5:50 am	6:30 am	2	2 coffees, last at 3pm
Tue

Paper works well because you're not reaching for your phone in the morning. If you use an app, turn notifications off so it doesn't become a reason to scroll.

How long to keep it going

One night tells you very little. Aim for at least a week, and two weeks if you can, so you capture work days and days off. The Consensus Sleep Diary itself is laid out as a week of nights per page. If you're seeing your GP or a sleep clinic, ask whether they'd like you to use their own form, and bring yours to the appointment. Our guide on what happens in a sleep study explains where a diary fits if you're referred.

Tips for an accurate diary

• Estimate, don't measure. Watching the clock at night makes it harder to sleep. Turn the clock away and guess in the morning.
• Be consistent. Same time each morning, same scale for quality.
• Record the bad and the good. A diary that only logs bad nights gives a skewed picture.
• Don't change everything at once in the first week. Get a baseline first, then try one change at a time.
• A tracker is not a diary. Wearable trackers estimate sleep from movement and heart rate and can be wrong; your own sense of how you slept matters too. See do sleep trackers work.

Reading the patterns

After a week or two, look across the rows. Some common patterns:

What you see	What it might suggest
Long time to fall asleep most nights	Going to bed before you're sleepy, or a busy mind at bedtime
Lots of time in bed awake	Spending longer in bed than you sleep, which CBT-I addresses
Wake-up time all over the place	Body clock drifting; a fixed wake-up time helps
Worse nights after late coffee or drinks	A clear target for change
Very sleepy during the day despite long nights	Worth raising with your GP

These are prompts, not diagnoses. For a wider look at what helps poor sleep, see insomnia: what helps.

When to see your GP

See your GP if trouble sleeping has lasted more than a few weeks, if you're very sleepy during the day, if you snore loudly or someone has seen you stop breathing, or if poor sleep is affecting your mood. Take your diary with you.

Where the Sovune Nudge fits

We make the Sovune Nudge, a silent alarm wristband, so we're not neutral. It doesn't track your sleep or record anything. What it can do is give you a steady, phone-free wake-up, which makes your diary easier to keep and your wake time more consistent.

• Set on the band itself. No app, no phone, no Bluetooth, so the phone can stay out of the bedroom.
• Three separate alarms, for example one to wake up and one to remind you to fill in the diary.
• Shows the time when you press the button, with no glowing clock in the room the rest of the night.
• Wakes you with vibration on your wrist, escalating for a full minute, and you can switch it off sooner.

It comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Quick answers

What should a sleep diary include? Bedtime, the time you tried to sleep, how long it took, wakings, final wake time, time out of bed and a quality rating, plus notes.

When should I fill it in? In the morning, within about an hour of getting up.

Can I use my sleep tracker instead? It can add information, but it isn't a substitute. Trackers estimate sleep and can be inaccurate.

How long should I keep a sleep diary? At least a week, ideally two, so it includes work days and days off.

For every type of silent alarm compared, see our complete guide to vibrating alarms in Australia.

See the Sovune Nudge →