ATLANTA (CNN) – After a long day working at home, Hadly Clark spends his night hours passing by without thinking about his phone. She goes through her usual scheduled bedtime at 9:30 pm in favor of online shopping and social media scrolling.
Before Clark knows it, the clock says 1 o’clock. She finally dozes off and wakes up exhausted the next morning, with the phone on the nightstand ringing the alarm clock at 6 am
This cycle of staying up late and regretting the next day is very familiar to many people, even before the pandemic. In recent years, the phenomenon has been dubbed “procrastination from revenge at bedtime”.
Procrastination to revenge bedtime may be a more recent term, but the type of sleep schedule he describes is not, said Dr. Rajkumar Dasgupta, assistant professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California In Los Angeles.
“The procrastination of revenge at bedtime is just a cry from overworked people, and they are really trying to postpone bedtime a little so they can claim something for themselves,” said Dasgupta.
It is normal for people to want time for themselves at night, but it becomes a problem if they are tired during their hours of sleep due to lack of sleep, he said.
Clark, associate director of FasterCures who lives in Alexandria, Virginia, said she had no trouble falling asleep until the pandemic forced her to work from home. Her internal clock wakes her up between 5:30 am and 7 am, regardless of how late she is awake, so she had to resort to coffee and soda to stay awake during the day, she said.
His days used to follow consistent routines, but since the pandemic struck, Clark said he has struggled to create an evening routine. She partially attributed this to not wanting to accept a pandemic life.
“If I adapt to the new way of living, it’s like I’m accepting that this is reality, and I don’t want it to be,” said Clark.
Brian Sinclair, a software engineer in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said the procrastination of revenge at bedtime had stolen his sleep long before the pandemic arrived. It all started about five years ago, when his second child was born, leaving him with less time for himself, he said.
“There is a lot of lack of control in my life,” said Sinclair, and it was at night that he said he regained control. He often finds himself playing video games or falling into the rabbit hole on YouTube, he said.
Why do people do this
Staying up late rolling the screen without thinking or watching television could be someone’s attempt to reduce stress, said Vaile Wright, senior director of health innovation at the American Psychological Association.
“We know that just rolling around without thinking and not interacting significantly actually increases our stress as opposed to reducing it,” said Wright.
People may also find it difficult to close their doors at the end of the workday, because the boundaries have been blurred since the pandemic began, she said.
Sinclair, who currently works for Even, is a veteran who works from home and has been commuting to work every day for over a decade. However, his work schedule changed when the pandemic hit him to accommodate his children’s online learning.
We know that just rolling carelessly and not interacting in a meaningful way actually increases our stress, rather than reducing it.
–Vaile Wright, American Psychological Association
He spends part of the morning helping his son at school online because his 8-year-old son has a hard time concentrating, Sinclair said. After that, he passes the responsibility on to his wife for most of the day.
Consequences of staying up late
Not getting enough sleep leads to sleep deprivation, which can affect your mental and physical health, said Dasgupta. He said that some common consequences are decreased productivity and increased cortisol, a stress hormone.
When you go to bed much later and wake up at the normal time, you risk accumulating sleep debts from the lost hours, according to Dasgupta. The only way to get rid of sleep debt is to sleep the number of hours you have lost, which it says is not possible for most people.
Studies show that getting a little more sleep on weekends is not the most effective way to regain lost sleep. People were unable to compensate for the effects of lack of sleep during the week – such as snacks, weight gain and disturbed circadian rhythms – sleeping on weekends, according to a 2019 study published in Current Biology.
The researchers found that if someone sleeps late on weekends, but sleep quality is poor, they tend to overeat and gain weight.
The amount of sleep a person should sleep is different for each person, but adults should generally sleep seven to eight hours a night, Dasgupta said.
Using technology late at night can also affect our sleep, he said. The screens emit blue light, which Dasgupta said suppresses the release of melatonin, a hormone that helps control the sleep cycle.
How to stop sabotaging your sleep schedule
It is completely normal for your sleep schedule to be imperfect, especially during a pandemic, said Dasgupta. He recommended that people make the transition to sleep both physically and mentally.
Dasgupta said that most people like their rooms “quiet, dark and cool”. He also suggested that people engage in an activity they liked, such as meditation, that helped them fall asleep.
Turning off electronic devices and not taking them to bed is another strategy for falling asleep, he said.
A nap of strategic power can also reduce a person’s sleep debt, according to Dasgupta. He recommended a 15 to 20 minute nap between noon and 2 pm. A longer nap could lead someone to deeper stages of sleep, he said, which could cause more sleep inertia, the drowsiness one feels right after waking up.
During the day, people must strengthen their boundaries and schedule time for themselves, Wright said. Clark said he is working to schedule breaks in his day for activities like exercise.
She said it will help her “have time to breathe, which is also good for my physical and mental health”.
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