Why do we put off going to bed?
People who generally struggle with self-control are more likely to delay going to bed, which directly leads to getting less sleep and feeling more tired during the day.
Source
Bedtime procrastination: introducing a new area of procrastination
Study at a glance
- Design
- Cross-sectional — MTurk survey introducing bedtime-procrastination items and relating them to general procrastination and sleep
- N
- N=177 · 48.6% male; mean age 37.9
- Population
- Amazon Mechanical Turk adults
- Outcome
- Self-reported bedtime procrastination and its association with general procrastination and sleep timing
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Inspect source passages
Why do we put off going to bed?
These passages occur verbatim in the stored paper text. They support the points listed below; they do not verify every statement in the explanation.
177 participants analyzed in the final sample
Of the remaining sample ( N = 177) 48.6% was male, and the mean age was 37.9 years ( SD = 11.0).
A correlation of 0.60 between bedtime procrastination and general procrastination
Notably, the correlation between bedtime procrastination and general procrastination ( r = 0.60, p < 0.001) reflects considerable overlap but also distinctiveness of the sleep-specific type of procrastination and the general trait.
What they did
The researchers surveyed an online sample recruited through Amazon Mechanical Turk. After excluding individuals with sleep disorders or night shift schedules, they analyzed data from 177 participants. Participants completed self-report questionnaires measuring their bedtime procrastination, general procrastination, sleep outcomes, and self-regulation traits.
What they found
They found that bedtime procrastination was strongly associated with poorer sleep outcomes, accounting for significant variance in hours of sleep, daytime fatigue, and experienced sleep insufficiency even after controlling for demographics and general self-regulation. Specifically, bedtime procrastination was negatively correlated with hours of sleep and positively correlated with daytime fatigue and subjective sleep insufficiency. Additionally, bedtime procrastination showed a strong positive correlation of 0.60 with general procrastination, indicating they are related but distinct concepts.
The limits
What it doesn't show
Because this study used a cross-sectional design, it cannot prove that bedtime procrastination causes poor sleep; it is possible that being tired reduces self-control, leading to more procrastination. Additionally, the data rely entirely on subjective self-reports rather than objective measures like sleep trackers, which may introduce recall bias. Finally, the sample was self-selected from an online marketplace, meaning the findings might not perfectly represent the broader general population.
Key terms
- Bedtime procrastination
- The act of going to bed later than intended despite having no external reasons or obstacles preventing one from doing so.
- Self-regulation
- The cognitive and behavioral process of overriding or altering one's internal responses to align with long-term goals.
- Action orientation
- A state of self-regulation characterized by decisive, goal-directed behavior and an ease of starting necessary tasks.
- State orientation
- A state of self-regulation where an individual is hesitant, easily distracted, and prone to postponing action.
- Cross-sectional study
- A research design that analyzes data collected from a population at a single point in time, preventing the determination of cause-and-effect relationships.
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Quiz yourself
How is procrastination formally defined in the literature cited by this study?
Common questions
How is bedtime procrastination different from just staying up late?
Staying up late might be due to unavoidable circumstances like working a night shift, whereas bedtime procrastination specifically involves delaying sleep voluntarily despite wanting or intending to go to bed.
Why do people procrastinate on sleep if they know they will feel tired?
The authors suggest that going to bed is often not aversive, but people struggle to disengage from enjoyable evening activities, especially when their self-control is depleted at the end of the day.
What are the real-world consequences of bedtime procrastination shown in this study?
It is associated with sleeping fewer hours, experiencing higher levels of daytime fatigue, and feeling like one has not slept enough during the week.
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