Bedtime Procrastination

Bedtime procrastination is a psychological phenomenon in which a person voluntarily delays going to bed despite knowing that doing so risks foreseeable next-day consequences such as fatigue; it can also be partly unintentional, arising simply from losing track of time. It has been linked in research to shorter sleep duration, poorer sleep quality and greater daytime fatigue. Research distinguishes bedtime procrastination from general procrastination, finding the two related but genuinely distinct: bedtime-specific factors, such as electronic devices and stimulating activities engaged in right before bed, predict it more strongly than a person's own general tendency to put things off. A related Chinese-origin term, revenge bedtime procrastination, describes the more specific pattern of intentionally delaying sleep as a response to feeling a lack of control over how one's own daytime hours were spent.