The Advantages of a Sleep Diary — REM Reward

A sleep diary is a straightforward approach to observe your sleep-related actions. It entails recording data akin to bedtime, wake-up time, and the quantity of caffeine or sugar consumption. You possibly can even write concerning the dream you had final evening! It’s enjoyable to look again at our foolish desires. A sleep diary template could be discovered on-line. You may also jot down just a few necessary notes in your cellphone. Questions that you could ask your self are:

When did I get out and in of mattress?
How a lot time did I spend on my cellphone earlier than mattress? What did I do particularly on my cellphone?
Did I wrestle to go to sleep?
What did I eat and drink earlier than going to mattress?
How was my sleep on a scale of 1-5?
Did I get up throughout the evening?
Was the room temperature snug?

Why a sleep diary?

Helps us establish unhealthy habits and patterns

Some of the widespread elements that result in poor sleep high quality is utilizing digital gadgets earlier than mattress. The sunshine from digital gadgets will make your physique suppose it’s daytime and suppress melatonin manufacturing, making it more durable to go to sleep. It’s really useful for college kids to make use of digital gadgets for lower than half-hour no less than 2 hours earlier than bedtime (Pham et al., 2021).

Nonetheless, the behavior of utilizing smartphones earlier than mattress is sort of unconscious for many individuals, an autopilot we slip into each evening. A sleep diary will assist us turn into extra conscious of this unhealthy behavior. We will see, in black and white, what number of hours had been spent on social media in complete once we’re speculated to be winding down. It’s like our crime was introduced into gentle and we’re extra motivated to repair it.

This additionally applies to different sleep-related patterns like consuming caffeine/sugar earlier than mattress and never having a adequate quantity of sleep or an excessive amount of sleep.