Required components of a sleep-wake online daily diary for accurate and efficient human research
Accurate documentation of sleep timing (enabling calculation of duration and variability) is imperative for research, health, and safety recommendations. Methods in real-world settings include one-time self-report, diaries, and wearables that vary by ease, expense, and accuracy. Here we highlight how programmable online daily diaries compare to gold-standard polysomnography for measuring sleep timing, should be preferred over one-time self-report, and complement wearables for longitudinal clinical and research studies and real-world applications.
Authors
- Jason P. Sullivan (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4256-5304)
- Melissa A. St. Hilaire (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5700-8391)
- Elizabeth B. Klerman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7402-3171)
- Erin E. Flynn‐Evans (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3818-8777)
- Akane Sano (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4484-8946)
- Salim Qadri (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2972-1197)
- Andrew J. K. Phillips (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1156-7056)
- Laura K. Barger (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8547-7331)
- Andrew W. McHill (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9428-6884)
- Charles Andrew Czeisler (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7408-1849)
- Steven W. Lockley (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5209-2881)
- Conor O’Brien
- Sara Taylor
Institutions
- Canadian Sleep & Circadian Network (CA)
- MIT Media Lab (US)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- npj Biological Timing and Sleep
- Published
- 2026-09-29
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1038/s44323-026-00106-z
- Primary Topic
- Sleep and related disorders
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00