Strength trainers keep detailed work out logs. Why not keep a sleep log?
Sleep logs provide many benefits. It takes 15 seconds every morning to record your sleep/wake time. I have kept a daily sleep log (off and on) for over a year.
I can see specific patterns in the way I sleep and associate them with my lifestyle habits that I record in a journal. For example, how do dietary habits affect sleep duration? How much do I sleep while free-running as compared to when I use an alarm clock?
Self-experimenter and author Seth Roberts kept a sleep log when he was younger. He reviewed it several years later and noticed that there was an immediate shift in sleep duration at around the same time he adopted a raw, whole foods diet. The diet change decreased his sleep need by about 30 minutes (he never used an alarm clock, so this was a natural decrease).
In my own logs, I’ve seen correlations between exercise intensity and sleep duration, diet and sleep duration, and more.
A sleep log might seem a bit OCD, but it’s a worthwhile time investment.
To log your data, use one of the following:
- SleepChart software (recommended)
- Google Spreadsheet
- Pen and paper (how primitive…)
