insomnia test
Seven questions about the last month. A couple of minutes, scored right here.
This questionnaire is ours, built on what actually defines insomnia: which part of the night is broken, how often, how long it has gone on, and whether it reaches the day. One of those features is missing from almost every casual sleep test — and without it, everybody comes out an insomniac.
scored in your browser · answers go nowhere
0 of 7 answered — the result appears on its own once everything is answered
your result
0 of 21
about this questionnaire
The questionnaire is ours, and it is built on the definition of insomnia rather than on impressions: a complaint of one of three kinds (trouble falling asleep, waking in the night, waking too early), a frequency of three nights a week or more, how long it has run, daytime consequences, and adequate opportunity to sleep.
That last one looks odd and is the most important. Someone sleeping four hours because they go to bed at two and get up at six doesn’t have insomnia — they have too little time set aside for sleep, and the fix is a different one. Casual online tests leave this question out almost every time, which is why they find insomnia in everybody.
Read the result as a picture rather than a grade: which part is broken, how long for, and whether there was a real chance to sleep. The number just puts your answers in order. What matters is how the signs come together — that’s what tells you what to do next.
The score ranges are ours too, and nobody has tested them on a sample.
short answers
- How much sleep do I need?
- Seven to nine hours for most adults, with a wide spread, and the day is a better guide than the figure. If your days are fine, you’re getting enough, even on less than the number people quote.
- Do my answers go anywhere?
- The scoring happens in your browser, we don’t store answers anywhere and we don’t ask for an email: close the tab and there’s no result left. Like any site, we run web analytics; what that collects is set out in the privacy policy.
- At what point is it actually insomnia?
- The usual reckoning: bad nights three times a week or more, consequences in the day, and a real opportunity to sleep. Under three months it’s called acute, beyond that chronic, and the two are approached differently.
- Do sleeping tablets help?
- In a short-lived situation, sometimes, on a doctor’s say-so. For long-standing insomnia the first choice is cognitive behavioural therapy rather than medication: it works at least as well and the gains hold after it stops, which isn’t what happens with tablets.
- What about melatonin?
- It isn’t a sleeping pill but a way of shifting the body clock — which is why it helps with jet lag and a scrambled schedule. When the clock is fine and it’s a busy head keeping you up, there is nothing to shift.
- My score is high. What do I do first?
- Hold one wake-up time, even after a bad night, and stop lying in bed awake. Those are the first two moves of the therapy itself, and they need nobody’s permission.
read next
can’t sleep how to fall asleep fast 4-7-8 breathing
what we read
- Riemann D. et al. European guideline for the diagnosis and treatment of insomnia. Journal of Sleep Research, 2017;26(6):675–700 — the source of the features used here, and of CBT-I coming first. pubmed
- Qaseem A. et al. Management of Chronic Insomnia Disorder in Adults: A Clinical Practice Guideline From the American College of Physicians. Annals of Internal Medicine, 2016;165(2):125–33 — CBT-I as first-line treatment. pubmed
Everyone gets the occasional bad night, and this doesn’t amount to insomnia: that starts at three bad nights a week, sustained over more than a month.
When a particular night won’t come, it’s usually one thing — light, coffee after mid-afternoon, a head that won’t stop. For the last of those, what works isn’t trying harder to sleep but giving the body a long exhale.
Something is going on with your sleep and it’s showing in the day. At this score the dull things work best: getting up at the same time even after a bad night, no screen in the bed, and not lying awake for more than about twenty minutes — get up, sit somewhere dim, go back when sleep comes near.
Daytime naps work against you here, however much you want one. So does alcohol: it speeds up falling asleep and takes the second half of the night apart.
If nothing shifts in a month, that’s a reason to see someone rather than to read another list of tips.
By the pattern of your answers this now looks like insomnia: sleep is disturbed regularly, it has gone on a while, and it reaches the day.
One thing here is worth knowing because it saves months. Insomnia lasting beyond three months is not treated with sleeping tablets but with cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia: a sleep schedule, plus working on the thoughts about sleep. The American College of Physicians recommends it as the initial treatment for chronic insomnia — a strong recommendation, ahead of medication.
What you can start today without waiting for an appointment: hold one wake-up time, drop daytime naps, and stop lying in bed awake. Those are the opening moves of the same therapy.
A high score: you have probably been sleeping badly for months and tried a great deal already.
At this point advice off the internet mostly doesn’t work — not because you’re doing it wrong, but because what’s needed here is structured work. The people to see are a sleep clinician or someone who does CBT for insomnia.
And get the physical side looked at. Insomnia this long is often kept going by something that gets treated on its own: sleep apnoea (snoring with pauses, waking unrefreshed), restless legs, thyroid problems, pain, certain medications. Mention these things at the appointment — otherwise you can spend years working on habits when the cause is elsewhere.