Your Insomnia Cure Could Lie in a Sleep Diary!

Whether you are part of an official sleep study or you just desire a solution for yourself, one tool that will help you find the sleep you are being deprived of is a sleep diary. One of the most frustrating issues of having a sleep disorder is the not knowing why it’s happening to you. This is the first step in finding an insomnia cure.

A sleep diary will help you identify the reasons you’re not getting enough rest at night. There is no exact right or wrong sleep pattern, but having a diary that records your slumber will help you see when (and why) your sleep routine is making you feel deprived and exhausted.

If you are suffering from sleep deprivation, your mind may not function as effectively as it does when you are getting adequate rest. A diary will help you remember the details of why you woke up, or what caused you to have trouble getting to sleep.

You’ll need to record certain details about your sleep, not just whether or not you got any. You’ll want to jot down your pre-slumber routine - were you watching 24 or cleaning house right before bed, or did you have a sugar filled, high-caffeine meal 20 minutes before crawling into bed?

Your diary can identify habits you haven’t picked up on. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy either. Just a piece of paper with grids can be all that's needed to document a record of your sleep activity. You don’t even need to be exact with timelines – if you know you went to bed around 10 PM, write it down – don’t worry if it was 9:55 PM or 10:12 PM.

Keep track of the times you wake up and what made you wake up. Did you get out of bed when you woke up, or just lie there looking at the ceiling? What did you do? How long did it take you to go back to sleep? All of these answers help the sleep study clinic (or you) identify what you’re doing right or wrong.

Try to keep a record of when you fell asleep and woke up, how often (and for how long) you awoke during the night, what medications you were on, what you ate, any naps you took during the day, and when you felt sleepy versus when you were alert and awake.

Note to yourself whether you felt energetic or fatigued when the alarm went off the next morning. Keep track of what you consumed during the day – caffeine, medications, food, etc. At different times of the day, try to note how you feel – energetic or beat down?

Go over your sleep diary and see what adjustments you can make in your lifestyle habits to help get rid of your sleep disorder. If you don’t see anything apparent to your knowledge, then take the sleep diary to a physician and have him or her read through it to see if a professionally-trained medical professional can find the issues you need to address.

Insomnia Cure