About Sleep Handbook

Sleep Handbook is an independent website about one specific problem: being tired but unable to sleep. It explains the difference between tiredness and sleepiness, the numbers worth running on yourself, and it gives away a free seven-night sleep diary and tracker.

What this site is

Sleep Handbook is a small, single-purpose reference. It is not a magazine and not a blog. It exists to answer one question well — why a person can be genuinely exhausted and still lie awake — and to hand over the one tool that makes the answer usable: a seven-night sleep diary with the two derived numbers worked out for you.

The main guide is written to be read once, top to bottom, on a phone, in a few minutes. The diary and the spreadsheet tracker are free to print or download, with no sign-up and no email required.

How the content is put together

Every article is assembled from multiple independent sources and first-hand accounts rather than copied from any single page. Where published guidance disagrees with itself — and on this topic it often does — the disagreement is shown rather than smoothed over, because knowing that the confident answers contradict each other is part of understanding the problem. Numbers such as sleep efficiency ranges, caffeine half-lives and light timing are stated with the assumptions behind them so you can check them against your own record.

What this site is not

Sleep Handbook is general information, not medical advice, and it is not a substitute for a clinician who can examine you. If your sleep problem comes with loud snoring or pauses in breathing, with falling asleep while driving, with low mood, with pain or restless legs, or if it has lasted three months or more, see a doctor rather than working through another checklist. The guide says the same thing, in the same place, and means it.

Contact

Questions, corrections and suggestions are welcome at hello@sleephandbook.com. See the contact page for details, and the privacy policy for how data is handled.