Journal Common Questions

We’ve compiled answers to the most frequently asked questions about Journal.

Journal is designed to help you track your daily habits and better understand how those behaviors impact your health metrics over time.

For example, if you’re unsure whether something like a weighted blanket, caffeine timing, or late meals are helping or hurting your sleep, Journal allows you to quantify those effects using your Bevel data.

To get the most accurate and useful insights:

• Log entries throughout the day as events happen

• Stay consistent: gaps in logging can reduce insight quality

• Be mindful that Journal works best when paired with your real daily habits, not occasional entries

• A Journal “day” runs from when you wake up → until your next wake time

• Nighttime entries include everything that happens before sleep and overnight until you wake up again

This reflects a correlation, not a cause-and-effect relationship. Higher step counts may coincide with other factors like fatigue, travel, or increased activity levels that impact recovery.

This tracks your exposure to daylight within the first hour after waking, based on Apple Health’s “Time in Daylight” data.

This is directly sourced from Apple Health’s daylight tracking. Bevel uses Apple’s definition for this metric.

Log it in the Apple Mindfulness app, and Bevel will automatically sync the data into Journal.

Bevel uses Apple Health’s State of Mind API, which requires writing data to Apple Health in order to display it properly in Journal and Insights.

• Yellow = Journal is partially complete

• Green = All entries for the day are complete

Not currently, custom tags are limited to yes/no inputs.

Not currently. Journal entries must be logged manually or through connected data sources like Apple Health.

Bevel offers reminders to help you stay consistent:

• Evening Reminder:
  Receive a reminder to reflect on and log your day before bedtime. You can customize the notification time to fit your schedule.

  • Manage in: Profile → Notifications → Journal

• Morning Reminder:
  Prompts you to log habits from the previous night.

  • Manage in: Profile → Customization → Journal → Reminders

• Streak Reminders:
  Receive alerts when you maintain consistent logging over time.

  • Manage in: Profile → Customization → Journal → Reminders

To choose which data sources Journal uses:

1. Open Bevel.

2. Go to Profile → Customization → Journal.

3. Select the journal category you want to customize.

4. Choose which data source(s) Bevel should use for that category.

For supported categories (such as Alcohol, Caffeine, and Supplements), you can choose between:

• Apple Health + Nutrition: Imports data from both Apple Health and Nutrition.

• Apple Health only: Imports data only from Apple Health.

To set a daily water goal:

1. Open Bevel.

2. Go to Profile → Customization → Goals.

3. Tap Daily Water Goal.

4. Enter your desired daily water intake goal and save your changes.

To see Journal entries from a previous day

1. Open the Journal tab.

2. Swipe left or right across the date bar at the top to navigate between weeks.

3. Tap the specific date you want to view.

The Journal will display the entries recorded for that selected day.

Bevel displays a morning pop-up with Journal entries that are configured for Nighttime Entry ("Log yesterday's entry on wake up"). By default, this includes:

• 50+ dB Sleeping Noise

• Device in Bed

• Late Meal

You can customize which Journal entries appear in this morning pop-up by enabling or disabling Nighttime Entry in the settings for each supported Journal entry. 

To customize the morning pop-up:

1. Open the Journal tab.

2. Tap the three dots in the top-right corner.

3. Tap Customize Journal.

4. Tap the Settings icon next to the Journal entry you want to change.

5. Toggle Nighttime Entry (Log yesterday's entry on wake up) on or off, if available.

The 50+ dB Sleeping Noise entry is automatically detected and cannot be logged manually.

If you're using an Apple Watch with Noise Notifications enabled in Apple Health, your watch measures ambient background noise while you sleep. Bevel reads this data and automatically logs the entry when applicable.

If the entry is blank or unavailable, it means no qualifying data was recorded or imported for that night.

Morning Sunlight is a manual Journal entry that you can log yourself by toggling it on.

Morning Sunlight (Auto) is automatically detected when Bevel determines that you've been exposed to sunlight after waking up, so no manual entry is required.

No. Disabling a Journal entry only hides it from your active Journal, it does not delete any of your historical data. If you re-enable the entry later, all of your previous Journal entries for that topic will reappear exactly as they were before.