1) How long have you been suffering from insomnia?
If this you have been suffering from insomnia for less than a couple of weeks, then it could be in reaction to a life situation or a change in health. Either way, often your family doctor can help with short-term sleeping medications or a check-up to evaluate your health situation. If it is in reaction to a change in your life situation you can review help for grief or other relationship issues (upcoming at this site).
4) Can you predict whether you’ll have a good or poor night’s sleep?
If you can predict, then what makes the difference? What can you do about it? If you can't think of anything that can be done, then perhaps a conversation with a friend, counselor, or health care professional can help you find ideas. Of course, it may be something related to other aspects of the sleep problem, so keep on going through these questions for additional ideas.
6) How often during the week do you have a problem with falling sleep or staying asleep?
7) On a typical night how many times do you wake up in the night?
9) When you do wake up in the night, how long do you usually stay awake?
These two questions are very helpful to a health care professional trained in sleep problems. Also, sometimes people aren't very good judges about how long they are awake. For this situation some sleep laboratories have take home equipment to help a person determine what their problem and wakefulness really is.
10) How many hours of sleep do you typically get per night?
Don't believe claims that people have that they can get by with little sleep each night. Research shows that under eight (8) hours per night results in impaired performance, no matter what the person may think or feel. Sometimes, people aren't the best judges of their own performance.
13) Has the sleep difficulty been gradually increasing or was it sudden?
If sudden, then what was happening at the start of the problem? This is an important clue to possible solutions.
14) Has your insomnia been persistent, seasonal, only occurring at certain times, or have you noticed other patterns?
Patterns provide more clues as to what the problem is. They are varied as to what each pattern may mean, but your health care provider can help you figure that out.
15) What types of things make your sleep worse?
Again, you'll get clues here about what you can change to help your sleep. For the things that make your sleep worse that seem like there is nothing that can be done - Don't Give Up! Chances are someone has thought of a solution or an idea that could work for you!
24) What do you think is influencing your sleep problem?
If you've done a significant amount of research yourself into your sleep problem, then be sure to tell your health care professional. It is not uncommon for a patient to know more about a particular problem than the helper/doctor/therapist...
16) What impact does insomnia have on your life? For instance does your mood change, do you have trouble staying awake during the day? is your performance impaired?
It's important to be able to see the areas that you aren't effected by the sleep problem as well as the ones that are.
174) Does a poor night's sleep interfere with your activities or your moods the next day?
17) How do you cope with daytime effects of insomnia?
21) How noticeable to others do you think your sleeping problem is and what do you think they notice?
The higher the numbers on the last three questions indicates the level of the problem.
Sleep Evaluation
This site is created by and belongs to: Iris Publishing email: Webmaster@Iris-Publishing.com Regular Mail: P.O. Box 1092, Coupeville, WA 98239 Phone: (360) 678-6409 Copyright 1996-1998 Sarah Richards