Insomnia Test (ISI): Screen Your Sleep Difficulty and See Your Severity Score
This Insomnia Test screens for sleep difficulty and daytime impact using an adaptation of the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI). Get an instant severity score and an optional PDF; the result is not a diagnosis.
Reviewed by Michael Callans, MSW 
Insomnia Test (ISI) is a free, confidential 7-question self-assessment, based on the validated ISI. It takes about 7 minutes, runs entirely in your browser, and gives you a plain-language score across 4 interpretation bands plus an optional in-depth report. It is an educational screening, not a diagnosis.
What the Insomnia Severity Index actually captures
The ISI was built to measure insomnia the way clinicians think about it: not just how you sleep at night, but how much it costs you during the day and how much it worries you.
Nighttime and daytime symptoms
Seven items cover trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, and waking too early, plus how satisfied you are with your sleep and how much the problem affects your days.
A severity score
Your answers sum to a single 0 to 28 score that maps onto the same clinical ranges used in sleep research: no significant insomnia, subthreshold, moderate, or severe.
A recent time window
The ISI asks about the past two weeks, so your result reflects how your sleep has actually been lately, not your worst night ever or your whole life.
| Feature | Typical free quiz | Psychology.com |
|---|---|---|
| Validated ISI questions | Sometimes | Yes, faithful wording |
| Real clinical severity cutoffs | Vague labels | Yes, from the ISI research |
| Covers daytime impact, not just nights | Rarely | Yes (interference & distress) |
| Plain-language interpretation | Rarely | Yes, for every band |
| Clinician-reviewed | Rarely | Yes, clinician reviewed |
| Optional in-depth personalized report | No | Yes, written to your exact scores |
| Confidential (no data sent) | Often tracked | Runs in your browser |
How scoring works
Answers are scored 0–28 in total. Your result falls into one of 4 bands:
| Score | Band | What it suggests |
|---|---|---|
| 0–7 | No clinically significant insomnia | Your answers fall below the threshold for clinically significant insomnia over the past two weeks. That is a reassuring result on this measure. |
| 8–14 | Subthreshold insomnia | Your answers point to subthreshold insomnia: real sleep difficulty that has not yet reached the clinical range. This is a good moment to act, while the pattern is still light. |
| 15–21 | Moderate clinical insomnia | Your answers point to moderate clinical insomnia. This is the range where structured treatment, especially CBT-I, is genuinely worth pursuing. |
| 22–28 | Severe clinical insomnia | Your answers point to severe clinical insomnia. Living on this little reliable sleep is exhausting, and you deserve proper help with it. |
Who this test is for
The Insomnia Test (ISI) measures reported sleep difficulty, dissatisfaction, and daytime impact. It helps describe symptom severity for a conversation about sleep; it cannot determine why you are sleeping poorly or confirm a sleep disorder. This test fits anyone who has had several rough nights in a row and is wondering whether it counts as insomnia or is just a rough patch: people managing a stressful stretch at work, new parents adjusting to a newborn's schedule, shift workers whose hours fight their body clock, or people whose pain, anxiety, or menopause symptoms are spilling into the night. The ISI does not ask why your sleep is disrupted, only how disrupted it is, so it works as a starting point regardless of the cause.
If daytime sleepiness is the bigger complaint, even when nighttime sleep feels fine, the Daytime Sleepiness Test may be a better fit, and if the sleep itself feels unrefreshing rather than simply hard to get, the Sleep Quality Test looks at that angle specifically. The Chronotype Test explores preferred sleep timing, and the Psychology.com tests hub brings these related self-assessments together.
Short-term insomnia vs. chronic insomnia disorder
Not every stretch of bad sleep is chronic insomnia. Short-term insomnia usually follows an identifiable stressor, a deadline, grief, travel, or illness, and tends to ease on its own within a few weeks as the stressor passes or you adjust to it. Chronic insomnia disorder is the diagnosis clinicians use when difficulty falling or staying asleep happens on most nights for three months or longer, the threshold reflected in the American College of Physicians guideline referenced in this test's methodology.
The distinction matters because early, short-term insomnia often responds to the basics, protecting a consistent wake time and not fighting wakefulness in bed, while insomnia that has crossed into the chronic range usually needs the structured approach of CBT-I to break the anxious loop that has built up around sleep itself.
More precisely, NHLBI describes chronic insomnia as difficulty sleeping at least 3 nights a week for 3 months or longer. A clinical assessment also considers your opportunity to sleep, daytime effects, and other explanations. You can seek help before reaching that duration, especially when sleep loss is affecting your ability to function.
What a CBT-I program actually involves
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is not simply talking about sleep. A typical program works through sleep restriction, temporarily limiting time in bed to build stronger sleep pressure, stimulus control, using the bed only for sleep so the brain relearns the association, and structured work on the anxious thoughts that build up around not sleeping, all guided by a trained therapist over a series of weekly sessions.
Progress is typically tracked with a simple Sleep Diary, since a week of real nightly data helps a therapist adjust sleep restriction and stimulus control more precisely than a single score ever could. Programs are available through therapists you can find in the Psychology.com therapist directory as well as through reputable structured digital programs, and are usually the right first call before considering long-term sleep medication.
How Should I Use My ISI Result at a Sleep Appointment?
Bring your result together with a Sleep Diary describing bedtime, waking, naps, and daytime sleepiness. Note caffeine and alcohol use, medication changes, and whether your schedule allows enough time for sleep. NHLBI recommends discussing these details because a severity score cannot show the full pattern or identify its cause.
Tell the clinician about loud snoring, gasping, or breathing pauses even if your insomnia score is low. Insomnia symptoms and another sleep condition can occur together. A clinician can decide whether the history calls for a sleep study or another assessment; the questionnaire cannot make that decision.
Methodology & sources
This test reproduces the seven items of the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), developed by Charles Morin and validated by Bastien and colleagues (2001) as an outcome measure for insomnia research. Each item is rated 0 to 4 for the past two weeks, giving a total score from 0 to 28. We use the validated clinical cutoffs confirmed by Morin and colleagues (2011): 0 to 7 no clinically significant insomnia, 8 to 14 subthreshold insomnia, 15 to 21 moderate clinical insomnia, and 22 to 28 severe clinical insomnia. One adaptation to be transparent about: the original ISI uses slightly different answer labels for different items (for example, severity labels for the sleep questions and satisfaction labels for the satisfaction question). To work as a single smooth questionnaire, this version words every item as a statement and uses one unified 0 to 4 answer set, from not at all to very much. The meaning and scoring of each item are preserved.
This test is provided for education and self-reflection. It is not a diagnosis. The ISI is a screening and severity tool, and a high score does not by itself confirm insomnia disorder, which a clinician diagnoses by talking with you about your sleep, health, and habits. It also cannot detect other sleep disorders. If you snore loudly, gasp or stop breathing during sleep, or fight heavy daytime sleepiness, please tell a doctor, because those are signs of sleep apnea, a different condition with its own effective treatment.
Because the wording and response labels are adapted on this page, published accuracy estimates for the original ISI should not be treated as measured accuracy for this version. The nighttime and daytime breakdown is a way to organize your answers for discussion, rather than a separate diagnosis for each group of symptoms.
References
- Bastien CH, Vallières A, Morin CM. Validation of the Insomnia Severity Index as an outcome measure for insomnia research. Sleep Med. 2001;2(4):297-307. doi.org/10.1016/s1389-9457(00)00065-4
- Morin CM, Belleville G, Bélanger L, Ivers H. The Insomnia Severity Index: psychometric indicators to detect insomnia cases and evaluate treatment response. Sleep. 2011;34(5):601-608. doi.org/10.1093/sleep/34.5.601
- Qaseem A, Kansagara D, Forciea MA, Cooke M, Denberg TD. Management of chronic insomnia disorder in adults: a clinical practice guideline from the American College of Physicians. Ann Intern Med. 2016;165(2):125-133. doi.org/10.7326/m15-2175
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Insomnia: Diagnosis. March 24, 2022. nhlbi.nih.gov/health/insomnia/diagnosis
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. How Sleep Works: How Much Sleep Is Enough? March 24, 2022. nhlbi.nih.gov/health/sleep/how-much-sleep
Cite this source
Psychology.com. (2026, September 16). Insomnia Test (ISI). Psychology.com. https://psychology.com/tests/insomnia
Insomnia Test (ISI) FAQ
How much sleep do I actually need?
Most adults do best on 7 to 9 hours, but the range is real: some people genuinely thrive on a bit less, others need more. A more useful question than the exact number is how you feel during the day. If you are alert and functioning well, your sleep is probably doing its job, even if it is not textbook.
What is CBT-I?
Cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia is a structured, short-term therapy that retrains your sleep using techniques like stimulus control, sleep scheduling, and changing anxious thoughts about sleep. It is the first-line treatment for chronic insomnia in the American College of Physicians guideline, recommended before sleep medication, and its benefits tend to last after treatment ends.
Should I just take sleeping pills?
The honest answer: medication can help short-term, but it treats the symptom, not the pattern. Guidelines recommend trying CBT-I first because pills carry tolerance, dependence, and next-day grogginess risks, and sleep usually worsens again when you stop. If you are considering medication, that is a conversation to have with a doctor, ideally alongside CBT-I rather than instead of it.
Is it insomnia or just my schedule?
Good question, because they get confused a lot. If you sleep fine whenever you are finally allowed to sleep on your own timing, say on weekends or holidays, your issue may be a mismatch between your body clock and your schedule rather than insomnia. Our chronotype test can help you figure out your natural timing. True insomnia means you struggle to sleep even when you have the time and opportunity.
When is it sleep apnea instead?
If you snore loudly, wake up gasping or choking, have been told you stop breathing in your sleep, or feel heavily sleepy during the day despite spending enough time in bed, see a doctor. Those are classic signs of sleep apnea, which this test cannot detect and which needs its own evaluation and treatment.
Is this test a diagnosis?
No. It is for education and self-reflection only. The ISI is a screening tool, and only a clinician can diagnose insomnia disorder or rule out other sleep conditions. If your results concern you, treat them as a good reason to talk to a doctor or a CBT-I trained therapist.
Related tests
Chronotype Quiz
Based on Morningness-Eveningness research. Are you a lion, bear, wolf, or dolphin?
Sleep Quality Test
Explore six areas of sleep quality across the past month, including the effects on your day.
Daytime Sleepiness Test
Separate the tendency to doze from its daily impact, with clear guidance on medical sleep evaluation.