Abstract
The present study examined whether sleep education and self-help treatment by using a sleep log would improve the lifestyle habits, sleep, mood in the morning, and motivation of 22 school nurses working in elementary and junior high schools. After the nurses were given sleep education, they were divided into an education-only group and a self-help treatment group. They were asked to select target behaviors and set goals. The self-help treatment group was also asked to record their daily achievement rate using a sleep log for 2 weeks. In the self-help treatment group, the bedtime and total sleep time improved significantly, and the irregularity of the participants' wake-up times was significantly reduced. Furthermore, results from the self-help treatment group revealed that the participants' lifestyle-habits (e.g., getting up every morning at approximately the decided time) showed significant improvement after treatment, and that their sleep, mood in the morning, and motivation improved significantly. On the other hand, the sleep education program improved the lifestyle habit of "starting with what one is able to do when setting up a target". Therefore, these findings suggest that the self-help treatment was effective in the prevention of nocturnal lifestyle programs and irregularity, and in promoting an improvement in sleep, morning mood, and motivation.
