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Sleep diary template: two weeks, in your browser
What it does
- Fill one row each morning Within an hour of getting up, while the night is still fresh.
- Estimate, do not measure The diary is not a reason to check the clock at 3am.
- Leave a missed morning blank A gap is more honest than a guess filled in on Thursday.
The GP asks how many nights a week it happens, and you hear yourself say most, probably. Nobody remembers sleep well.
A diary doesn't fix that. But it stops the nights blurring into one, and that's the half a GP needs.
How to use it
Each morning, within an hour of getting up, fill in one row for last night. When you got into bed, when the light went off, roughly how long you took to drop off.
How many times you woke, and for how long in total. When you woke for good, and when you got out of bed.
Add naps, caffeine and alcohol, a mark out of five, and the line that explains the night: a cold, an argument, next door's party.
Estimate; don't measure. The diary is not a reason to check the clock at 3am.
A 2007 study found that clock-watchers worried more and took longer to fall asleep. If you wake and think "about half an hour", write half an hour.
If you miss a morning, leave it blank. A gap is more honest than a guess filled in on Thursday.
What it works out for you
From the four times it calculates your time in bed, your estimated time asleep, and the one sum a sleep clinic watches most. That's sleep efficiency: hours asleep divided by hours in bed. Clinics like to see 85% or more.
It also averages your minutes to fall asleep and minutes awake in the night across the fortnight. The Royal College of Psychiatrists' bedtime method aims for about 20 and about 20.
The columns follow the consensus sleep diary that a group of insomnia researchers agreed in 2012. They tested the form on good sleepers, people with insomnia and people with sleep apnoea.
When the fortnight is up, copy the table and paste it into a note or an email to yourself. Take it to the appointment. Arrive with it and the conversation starts in the middle rather than the beginning.
Why two weeks
One bad week proves nothing. Two catches the weekend, the late nights, the ordinary nights and the pattern between them. The Mental Health Foundation's paper diary runs for 14 days for the same reason.
Then stop, unless a clinic asks for more. A diary kept for ever stops being a measure and starts being a worry.
What it can't do
It records the night as you experienced it, not the night as it was. A 2012 review found that people with insomnia tend to overestimate how long they took to fall asleep and underestimate how long they slept. So your efficiency may read lower than a lab would measure.
That's fine, and clinics know it. If two weeks of writing it down leaves you more anxious about sleep rather than less, say so at the appointment; that's useful information too.
What each column is for, and how a GP reads it, is in how to keep a sleep diary. Which half of your night is the problem is in why falling asleep and staying asleep differ. The NHS says to see a GP if changing your habits hasn't helped and the trouble has gone on for months.
Your diary stays in this browser only. Clearing the browser's site data removes it, so copy the table first.
Questions
What is a sleep diary?
A short record of each night's sleep, written the next morning from your own estimates. When you went to bed, how long you took to drop off, how often and how long you woke, when you got up, and how you feel. Clinics use it as the standard record of how you experienced the night.
What is a good sleep efficiency?
Around 85% or more: hours asleep divided by hours in bed. Below about 75% usually means too long in bed for the sleep you're getting, which is where a tighter sleep window comes in. The diary works the figure out for every night and across the fortnight.
Is the sleep diary private?
Yes. It's stored in your browser on this device and never sent to us or anyone else. That also means it won't appear on another device, and clearing your browser's site data deletes it, so copy the table before you do.
Sources
- The Consensus Sleep Diary: standardizing prospective sleep self-monitoring, Sleep, 2012
- (Mis)perception of sleep in insomnia: a puzzle and a resolution, Psychological Bulletin, 2012
- Sleeping well, Royal College of Psychiatrists, 2025
- Sleeping with the enemy: clock monitoring in the maintenance of insomnia, Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 2007
- Sleep diary, Mental Health Foundation, 2025
- Insomnia, NHS, 2024
This article is general information, not medical advice. If sleep problems last more than a few weeks, speak to your GP.
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