This may sound familiar? Because I feel your pain.
Bedtime procrastination has been defined by researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands as failing to go to bed at the intended time, while no external circumstances prevent a person from doing so. Its not that you cant fall asleep; its that you wont even go to bed.
I asked my friends who post on social media late at nights and early in the morning, what keeps them awake. Some cant bring themselves to stop binge-watching. Many reported that its reading about current events that delays bedtime. And all of the parents I spoke with felt the late-night and early-morning hours when they should be sleeping are their only me time, even at the expense of being bleary-eyed at breakfast.
We all know this is bad for us. Insufficient sleep can have a negative impact on our immune system, raise our risk of developing heart disease, cancer, lower our libidos and increase our weight. It can also affect our processing skills, memory, and processing speed. How can we get rid of this habit?
- Julie Gray, PCOC, PCC, plans her day backward, first calculating what time she wants to be in bed and then figuring out when in the evening she needs to stop working in order to get enough decompression time to make that happen.
- Establishing pre-bedtime rituals can signal to your brain that it is time to get to bed. Warm baths or a cup of tea can help you get your body into a calm mode.
- You can make a list of all the things that you do when you procrastinate at bedtime and then fix those habits. Consider implementing a no news-after-9 p.m. rule to prevent you from reading the news every night.
- The National Sleep Foundation recommends that you sleep well because the blue light emitted from our digital devices suppresses your melatonin. giving yourself at least half an hour of screen-free time before bed. (If, for some reason, you cant or wont give up pre-bed screen time, do as my therapist recommends and get a pair of blue light-blocking glasses to help mitigate the effect. Many online retailers sell non-prescription glasses for as low as €70.
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Im trying to end my own bedtime procrastination habits, and Ill admit its not easy. But on those nights when I do go to bed on time and get a good nights sleep, Ill admit to feeling a significant difference in how I feel during the day. Let’s learn to work together and turn off the TV so we can go straight up to bed.
