Clock watching
You wake in the dark and check the time. 3:12. You do the math. If you fall asleep right now, that’s three hours and eighteen minutes. Then it’s 3:40, and the math gets worse.
Why checking the time keeps you up
Looking at the clock rarely brings good news at night. Each check sets off a quick count of how much sleep is left, and that count brings worry, frustration, and a jolt of alertness. Nicole Tang, Anne Schmidt, and Allison Harvey tested this. People with insomnia who were asked to watch a clock while trying to fall asleep worried more and took longer to fall asleep than those who watched a display that didn’t show the time. They also overestimated how long it took.
Checking a phone adds bright light and everything else that lives on the phone.
What to try
- Turn the clock away, or put it across the room. Keep the alarm set, but make sure you can’t see the time from bed.
- Leave the phone outside the bedroom, or face down and out of reach.
- Go by feel. Stimulus control used to say to get up after 15 or 20 minutes awake. You don’t need a clock for that. If you’re frustrated or wide awake, get up.
- Let the alarm do its job. Your fixed wake time is the one time that matters, and the alarm will handle it.
But the diary asks for times
It does, and rough guesses are fine. The diary is filled in the next morning, from memory, and that’s how it’s meant to be used. There’s no need to check the clock in the night to get the numbers right. An estimate of how long it took to fall asleep is more useful than a measurement that kept you awake.
Sleep trackers
Watches and rings that estimate sleep can be interesting, and for some people they become another clock to watch. They also often disagree with how a night felt, especially about time awake. CBT-I runs on your own diary. If checking a tracker in the morning sets your mood for the day, try a week without it.
References
- Tang, N. K. Y., Schmidt, D. A., & Harvey, A. G. (2007). Sleeping with the enemy: Clock monitoring in the maintenance of insomnia. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 38(1), 40–55. doi.org/10.1016/j.jbtep.2005.07.004
- Harvey, A. G. (2002). A cognitive model of insomnia. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 40(8), 869–893. doi.org/10.1016/S0005-7967(01)00061-4
Helpful links
Everyday Insight’s tools are for education and personal reflection. They are not therapy or medical care, and they are not for emergencies. In an emergency, call 911. If you are in crisis in the United States, call or text 988.