Sleep Hygiene Index (SHI) — Free Online Sleep Habits Test

What the Sleep Hygiene Index measures

The Sleep Hygiene Index (SHI) looks at behaviours and environment, not sleep itself. Its 13 items cover habits that sleep research links to poorer sleep, including:

• Irregular timing — going to bed and getting up at different times, long daytime naps.
• Stimulating substances — caffeine, nicotine or alcohol close to bedtime.
• Pre-sleep activity — exercise, work, stressful tasks or thinking and planning in bed.
• Using the bed for other things — work, eating or screen time in bed.
• Sleep environment — an uncomfortable, noisy, bright or too-warm bedroom.

Because it focuses on habits you can change, it is a practical starting point for improving sleep.

Who it is for

• Adults who sleep poorly and want to know whether their routines are part of the problem.
• Students and professionals with late-night study, work or screen habits.
• Shift workers trying to protect sleep around changing schedules.
• People already working on sleep with a clinician who want to track habit changes.

How it works in the app

You rate how often each of the 13 habits applies to you, from never to always. The app totals your score and highlights the habits you rated most often, with specific suggestions for which ones to change first. Retaking it after a few weeks shows whether your routines are improving.

Your results

The Sleep Hygiene Index gives a total score where higher means poorer sleep hygiene. The original development paper did not publish validated clinical cut-off bands, so Mindtalk does not label your total as normal or abnormal. Instead, results are presented as:

Result section	What it shows	Suggested next step
Total score	How many sleep-disrupting habits you follow, and how often	Compare with your own score over time
Top habits	The items you rated as frequently or always	Pick one or two to change this week
Next step	Whether a sleep quality check or clinical input makes sense	Take the Sleep Quality Test if sleep still feels poor

Sleep habits and mental health

Sleep and mental health affect each other in both directions. Stress, anxiety and low mood make it harder to fall and stay asleep, and short or broken sleep makes emotions harder to manage the next day. Habits such as worrying in bed, late-night screens and irregular timing can keep this cycle going, which is why working on sleep hygiene is often one of the first practical steps a Mindtalk clinician will suggest alongside other support.

Validation and evidence

The Sleep Hygiene Index was developed by Mastin, Bryson and Corwyn at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and published in the Journal of Behavioral Medicine in 2006. It was given to 632 people, with a subset retaking it to test reliability. Test-retest analyses suggested that sleep hygiene behaviours are relatively stable over time in a non-clinical population, and scores were strongly related to sleep quality and modestly related to daytime sleepiness. The authors noted that it is much shorter than earlier sleep hygiene instruments while showing comparable psychometric properties. A 2015 review of sleep hygiene research found that individual recommendations are generally associated with nighttime sleep, but that sleep hygiene education on its own has limited effectiveness as a treatment for clinical sleep problems.

References

1. Mastin DF, Bryson J, Corwyn R. Assessment of sleep hygiene using the Sleep Hygiene Index. J Behav Med. 2006;29(3):223-227. PubMed
2. Irish LA, Kline CE, Gunn HE, et al. The role of sleep hygiene in promoting public health: A review of empirical evidence. Sleep Med Rev. 2015;22:23-36. PubMed

Simple changes to try first

Small, consistent changes usually work better than a complete overhaul. Start with the habits you rated highest:

• Fix your wake-up time. Get up at the same time every day, including weekends, even after a poor night. A steady wake time anchors your body clock more than a fixed bedtime.
• Keep naps short and early. If you nap, keep it brief and well before evening.
• Move caffeine earlier. Tea, coffee, colas and energy drinks late in the day can delay sleep. Try a cut-off in the early afternoon.
• Create a wind-down buffer. Stop work, study and stressful conversations some time before bed and do something calm instead.
• Take worries out of bed. If you tend to plan or worry in bed, write a short to-do list or worry list earlier in the evening.
• Make the bed for sleep. Move work, eating and scrolling out of bed where you can.
• Adjust the room. Darker, quieter and cooler is usually better. Eye masks, earplugs or a fan can help in shared or noisy homes.

Give each change two to three weeks before judging it, then retake the SHI to see what has shifted.

What the test does not tell you

• It does not measure how well you sleep. Someone with good habits can still sleep badly, and the reverse.
• It does not diagnose insomnia, sleep apnoea, restless legs or circadian rhythm disorders.
• It does not account for your body clock. A night owl forced onto early hours may score poorly on timing items for reasons that habit changes alone will not fix.
• It is not a treatment plan. Persistent insomnia usually needs more than habit changes.

Next steps

• Check how well you are sleeping with the Sleep Quality Test.
• Check your body clock with the Chronotype Test if your habits clash with your natural sleep timing.
• Know when it is more than habits. Read about sleep disorders, and if poor sleep persists, ask a Mindtalk psychologist about cognitive behavioural therapy techniques for insomnia.