Are You a Bedtime Procrastinator?
Do you ever find yourself delaying going to bed even though you know it's not going to be a good thing come tomorrow? If so, you may be a bedtime procrastinator. Bedtime procrastination is a psychological phenomenon that became famous based on a 2014 study from the Netherlands.
This study involved needlessly and voluntarily delaying going to bed despite foreseeably being worse off as a result. One cause of bedtime procrastination is a phenomenon in which people who don't have much control over their daytime life refuse to sleep early so that they can regain some sense of freedom and control during the late night hours. It's like this is 'my time.'
Sound familiar? Perhaps, but if it is a consistent pattern for you or someone that you know, then it's definitely a problem. A 2018 study identified three bedtime procrastination themes: deliberate procrastination, mindless procrastination and strategic delay.
With deliberate procrastination, this is where a person consciously believes that they deserve more time for themselves and that causes them to intentionally stay up later. Mindless procrastination is a bit of an accident that results from just losing track of time and then realising, 'Look at the time! I meant to go to bed an hour ago!'
Strategic delay, on the other hand, results from purposely staying up late so that you can fall asleep easier. This has been found to be linked with undiagnosed insomnia. So, people who struggle to get to sleep think, 'you know what, I'm just going to go to bed later and then I'm more likely to get to sleep.'
Now, research has also identified two subtly different types of bedtime procrastination. One of them is where people avoid going to bed until later than they should, and the other one is the people who do go to bed but they do activities to avoid going to sleep. These activities are typically about watching TV, being on social media—those sorts of things. It turns out that some people are more prone to bedtime procrastination than others.
People with high daytime stress levels are more prone to it as our students and women in general tend to be more prone to it, to men and people who identify as night owls. On the question of night owls, it's been shown in other studies that if night owls who say, 'well, I can't sleep until late,' get up earlier than normal consistently for a week, then it turns out that they will fear shift their natural sleep pattern to earlier in the day, particularly with today's smartphone and social media, Netflix and all of that.
To add to that point, it's been shown that people with higher cell phone addiction report more signs of bedtime procrastination. So what's the consequences of this bedtime procrastinations? Well, studies indicate that it's frequently associated with sleep deprivation and experiencing more fatigue throughout the day. This leads to low attention levels, bad memory, bad decision making, slower thinking, increased stress, increased anxiety and increased irritation.
We know from other studies around poor sleep that if you have poor sleep, your stress reactivity is higher the next day because your stress hormones are higher. So, you're more likely to become stressed. Other studies on poor sleep has determined a powerful effect on two significant hormones: ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin is your major hunger hormone, and after bad night's sleep, ghrelin goes up and makes you more likely to eat more food. Because your stress hormones are higher, you're more likely to crave sugary, fatty and salty food. So your diet goes to ratchet.
At the same time, levels of leptin go down after poor night's sleep. Leptin has a powerful effect on voluntary physical activity in the brain. If you block leptin in animals, they just stop moving and they become obese. It also has something to do with feeding behaviour—like a kind of the OFF switch. When leptin goes down, you're more likely to sit on your arse all day long.
In summary, you're less likely to exercise or do a workout, your OFF switch for food is down regulated and ghrelin your hunger hormones up—so it';s a nasty, vicious cycle, right then, because you're not exercising, you're eating more food, you're less able to handle the stresses of the day's event, and then you're more likely to soothe your anxiety that evening, either with more food or alcohol. And in both cases, you are more likely to have a bad
night's sleep at the end.
Now, overall sleep procrastination or bedtime procrastination has been linked to poor levels of self-regulation. This could potentially then create a vicious cycle where the poor self-regulation means that they don't go to bed when they should and then start to suffer all of the effects of sleep deprivation.
As we talked about earlier on, sleep deprivation because you're not exercising and you're eating more food, both of those things have a negative impact on your self-regulation. We know from the research that if sleep deprivation is not quickly treated, the long-term consequences include significantly increased risk for heart disease, diabetes, obesity, weakened immune system, hormone issues, mental health issues and Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia.
Obviously, it’s a pretty serious phenomenon. So what can you do if you think you might suffer from it or if you have a loved one that you think might be suffering from it? Researchers recommend a few ways that you can do to combat this bedtime procrastination.
One is turning off all electronic devices at least 1 hour before bed. This is because the darker environment is required to produce melatonin and therefore, we should limit the light that we get before we go to sleep, particularly blue light that comes from devices. It's been shown that if you're exposed to blue light within half an hour of going to bed, your melatonin drops around 30%.
Aside from turning all these electronic devices off, taking a hot shower or hot bath can actually help to prepare you for sleep if you're somebody who's got this busy mind, something called a dump pad. This is where you write down thoughts, feelings and experiences that stood out throughout the day or write down the things that are on your mind and you have that little bit of cognitive closure.
A really important thing around sleep hygiene is a regular wake time and regular bedtime, even on non-working days. So even on the weekends, do not shoot the messenger. This routine is really important so that you have a regular circadian rhythm. When you mess with your circadian rhythm, it just causes all sorts of issues.
These researchers also recommended snacking on nut seeds and pulses, which are sources of the amino acid tryptophan which then helps to produce melatonin. So maybe have an evening snack of those sorts of things, avoiding alcohol as well as creating restless sleep helps you actually wake up more often.
Alcohol interferes with REM sleep. A separate study showed that when you drink alcohol or take marijuana, it interferes with REM sleep, which then increases stress, anxiety and risk of depression. Because when you're in REM sleep, the brain is replaying the day's events and it basically does this while blocking norepinephrine (or noradrenaline), which is the major stress hormone in the brain. This is the only time in your life when this is blocked in the brain.
Researchers think it does so that you can process those emotional memories of the day in a less stressful environment. It's like nightly therapy. So making sure that you're limiting or avoiding alcohol and marijuana and at least having a number of AFDs and MFDs, then also caffeine.
Most people know caffeine is a stimulant. They give it to fighter pilots in times of war to keep them awake, and it's got a half-life of 6 hours, which means that 6 hours later, half of it is still in your system.
Now, in addition to those that have been recommended by the researchers, we highly recommend doing some form of mental stillness activity. Whether this is breath work, yoga, stretching, meditation or just reading a novel, all of those things are mindful activities that can just prepare your brain for sleep.
For a massive change, get the phone and all electronic devices out of the bedroom, and especially for your kids because it's been shown that kids who bring a device into their bedroom sleep one to one and a half hours less than their peers, making them have around double the risk of mental health issues.
Hopefully this has been helpful and there's some useful tips in there as well as a little bit of insights.
Corporate burnout to mental fitness
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