Keeping a Sleep Journal

Pay attention to your sleep habits by keeping a sleep journal. This will allow you and your doctor to trace the causes of your sleep problems. 

Download the sleep journal on this page.

Fill it in each day, if you forget some information on a given day, that's OK- but try to fill in as much as possible. After a few weeks, you can look for patterns in your sleep. For example, you may notice on nights that you ate after midnight, you woke up more times during the night; therefore you might want to avoid eating so late. Locating these patterns can help you and your doctor improve your sleep.

During the day, keep track of the following:

• What time did you wake up today?
• How many total hours did you sleep?
• How rested did you feel when you woke up? (Try using a scale of 1 to 5)
• Did you exercise today? When?
• Did you nap during the day? When?
• Did you consume any alcohol, caffeine, or nicotine? When? How much?
• Did you take any other medications or drugs in the evening? When? What type?
• What time did you eat?

And at night, keep track of the following:

• What time did you go to sleep?
• How long did it take to fall asleep?
• How many times did you wake up during the night?
• What caused you to wake up during the night?