Postponing bedtime, a reflex that could affect your well-being and health

You’re sleepy, nothing stops you from slipping under the duvet, and yet, here you are, hanging out, in your living room or on your bed, before turning off the light for good. Does the scene look familiar to you? You are doing what we call bedtime procrastination.

Procrastinate, during the day, but also at bedtime

Procrastination is the act of putting off until later a task that you should complete, whether it is a thankless task or a valued activity. Thus, some people, although tired, postpone bedtime by several minutes, or even several hours. A harmful behavior since it directly impacts the quality and sleep duration. However, as we know, “Lack of sleep has been linked to a wide range of negative effects on mental and physical health, such as lower quality of life and well-being, increased risk of depressionobesity, physical inactivity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and even mortality”, write the authors of a study on the link between sleep procrastination and stress.

Bedtime procrastination directly impacts sleep quality

In their study, the researchers recruited 96 students from the University of Heidelberg (Germany). Each responded to subjective assessments of their sleep quality, daily stress and questions about engaging in unplanned but controllable nighttime activities (smartphone, screens, reading, etc.), as well as the time at which they were planning to go to bed. For 14 days, participants also wore an actigraphy device that monitored their movements, recorded their total sleep duration and when they slept.

• On average, participants delayed the time they fell asleep by 15 minutes;
• When they delayed the time they went to bed, it was by an average of 102 minutes;
• On nights when participants delayed their bedtime, their sleep duration was shorter and their sleep quality was worse.

Stress would be the first reason

According to the study, this tendency to delay going to bed was unsurprisingly associated with smartphone addiction, the habit of scrolling on your screen before closing your eyes. But that’s not the only finding of the study. According to her, participants were more likely to delay bedtime on days when they were more stressed. Two reasons explain this stress: on the one hand, people who have had a busy day feel the desire to spend more time on leisure activities than on sleeping once the evening comes. On the other hand, delaying bedtime could allow stressed people to distract themselves to the point of exhaustion. Which would also prevent them from ruminating about their stress in bed. A way to not think too much, and to postpone the worries of the day until tomorrow.

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