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About this tool
Score your bedroom, daily habits and bedtime routine against sleep hygiene basics, with impact-ranked fixes and cut-off times.
The Sleep Hygiene Checklist scores sixteen evidence-based habits across three areas — the bedroom itself, what you do during the day and evening, and what happens once you are in bed — and returns a percentage with the gaps ranked by impact. The items come from standard sleep hygiene and stimulus-control guidance: a fixed wake time seven days a week, a bedroom around 16-19 C (60-67 F), dark and quiet, caffeine stopped about six hours before bed, and the bed reserved for sleep only. It also converts your target bedtime into concrete cut-off clock times for caffeine, alcohol, large meals and the start of your wind-down.
Open Sleep Hygiene Checklist on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Tick the sixteen items under Bedroom environment, Daytime and evening habits, and Bedtime routine and in-bed behaviour, each tagged High impact, Moderate or Supporting.
Enter Target bedtime (24-hour, HH:MM) so the cut-offs can be dated against it.
Read the Sleep hygiene score with each group's percentage, Impact points earned and Weakest area, the impact-ranked 'Fix these first' list, and the last caffeine, last alcohol, last large meal and start wind-down clock times, then press Copy result.
Fixed wake time, the bed-for-sleep-only rule and the 20-minute get-up rule carry more weight than pillow age, and the fixes are ordered accordingly.
Enter a bedtime and get the exact clock time for the last coffee, the last drink and the last big meal.
Says clearly when the problem is beyond hygiene and points to CBT-I and a medical review instead.
Around 16-19 C (60-67 F) is the range usually recommended. Core body temperature has to fall by roughly 1 C for sleep to begin, and a cooler room makes that drop easier — which is also why a warm bath an hour or two before bed helps rather than hinders.
About six hours is the common cut-off, because caffeine's half-life is roughly five to six hours. A 200 mg coffee at 4pm still leaves around 100 mg in circulation at 10pm, and one controlled study found caffeine taken six hours before bed cut total sleep by over an hour.
Fix the wake time. It is the stronger anchor for the circadian clock because morning light exposure follows it, and sleep pressure then pushes bedtime into place on its own. A consistent wake time seven days a week — including weekends, within about 30 minutes — is one of the highest-value changes on this list.
No. Sleep hygiene is a foundation, and on its own it performs poorly as a treatment for chronic insomnia. The first-line treatment is cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBT-I), which includes stimulus control and sleep restriction. If you have trouble sleeping at least three nights a week for three months despite good habits, ask a doctor about CBT-I.