How bad is bedtime procrastination, really? [part three]

Unpacking the very common practice that may – or may not – harm your sleep

Image conceptualised and sketched by me, polished and coloured by ChatGPT

Often, when I know it’s probably time to go to bed, I just want to use my phone. I can’t explain why, exactly. Sometimes I just want to browse through Reddit. Other nights I’ve been pondering a question for hours and need to find the answer (last night: at what age can you introduce spicy foods to kids? The night before: what’s the largest airline in the world?). On particularly stressful evenings, I crave a mindless scroll. My experience of bedtime procrastination is shared by, according to early data, about half of adults. What’s unique about my experience of bedtime procrastination is that I’ve studied it more than almost anyone else.

If in 2014, when the term bedtime procrastination was first coined in research, you’d told me that 10 years later I’d have published six journal articles, four conference posters, and an entire PhD thesis on the subject matter, I would have thought this to be incredibly random. It is. (The most challenging thing about this post will be keeping it short). When I started researching bedtime procrastination in 2020, it was a new area – examined by only a handful of studies – but rapidly growing. And there was one fundamental question not asked by any of these studies that guided our work: is bedtime procrastination actually bad?

The state of the research

First of all, bedtime procrastination is the voluntary delay of going to bed, despite knowing it’ll make you feel worse the next day. Early studies were based on survey data. This meant researchers would send out a bedtime procrastination survey asking things like, “how often do you go to bed later than intended?” and then a sleep survey, “during the past month, how many hours of sleep did you get a night?” Most studies showed bedtime procrastination was linked to indicators of poor sleep (i.e., there was a correlation, but not causation). But there were exceptions. One study didn’t find significant results between bedtime procrastination and sleep duration. Some researchers surmised that if people procrastinated bedtime but could sleep in, sleep duration would remain unchanged. To figure out what was going on, I got to work.

I led a 2022 review and meta analysis on bedtime procrastination that analysed the results of 40+ studies. It provided some clarity: overall, bedtime procrastination was associated with shorter sleep duration, lower sleep quality, and higher daytime fatigue. But – like all good research! – we walked away with more questions. The most basic ones were: what are people actually doing to procrastinate? And why? Out of those 40+ studies, only one actually asked people about their experience, in their own words. So, we set out to do something that seems basic, but is often missing from health research: Talk to people.

Actually talking to people

Very quickly it became clear that, for many, bedtime procrastination comes from a need to recharge. In an interview-based study I led, many people voiced that they needed their evening me-time to wind down from a busy day, explore niche interests, and cope with difficult emotions. And the method of choice to procrastinate bedtime? Using screens. For some, it was playing videos games on a computer. For others, using a tablet to watch YouTube, or using a phone to scroll. As one participant put it, their screen use helped them “deal with any thoughts that come with the silence of night.”

This is where the is bedtime procrastination actually bad? question becomes tricky to answer. People also described their screen-procrastination-time as “fun” and “rewarding.” Hypothetically people could spend me-time with some music, a book, or journalling. But if that’s not actually “fun”? They’d probably just bounce back to screens. And people enjoy winding down at the end of the day. In subsequent clinical trial of a program to reduce procrastination, we tried to shift me-time earlier in the day: when people were commuting, at lunchtime, as soon as they got home from work. This wasn’t really effective. Most participants in the group still wanted something to do to wind down before bed. This made me wonder: if bedtime procrastination is this hard to shift, can we look closer to see what patterns actually matter?

Tracking bedtime procrastination, night by night

Because questionnaire data for bedtime procrastination is largely based on vibes (i.e., do you often delay bedtime?), I wanted to get more specific. So I recently published a study in Sleep Medicine that tracked minutes of nightly bedtime procrastination over two weeks. (I did warn you that I’ve studied this a lot). Keep in mind these results are based on people who signed up to a study to reduce their bedtime procrastination, so they may procrastinate more than the average person.

In week one of the study – before people began a program to reduce procrastination – people spent an average of 48 minutes on screens after their intended bedtime:

But averages often don’t tell the whole story. For some participants, bedtime procrastination was consistently low – 15 to 20 minutes a night. For others, their procrastination stretched beyond two hours every night. And for many, it fluctuated. When we looked at screen use by participant (rather than a general average), some nights were low-screen nights, and others involved hours of scrolling. (A previous study, which is still under review, suggests these ‘low-screen’ nights might be due to sleepiness – perhaps your body just craves sleep after a ‘high-screen’ night).

What we found is that bedtime procrastination varies in two key ways: How long you procrastinate (e.g., 15 minutes or two hours), and how much it changes from night to night.

Bedtime procrastination is cause for concern when it’s either lengthy in duration, highly variable night to night – or both. This is because both shorter sleep and irregular sleep timing, over many years, can have negative effects on your health.

When winding down isn’t procrastination

Many people told me they were concerned about 15-20 minutes of bedtime procrastination. And why? Because they thought watching TV for 15 minutes was “bad,” they felt guilty for taking 20 minutes of me-time for themselves, they thought playing video games at night was somehow wrong.

As my previous posts have shown, both blue screen light and the type of content matters far less than we first thought. Given that it’s normal to take 10-20 minutes to fall asleep, in my opinion this length of procrastination is short and – in most cases, nothing to stress about. It is still typically considered ‘consistent’ sleep if your bedtime, or wake time, shifts by 30 minutes or less a night. In fact, if this time helps you wind down, I’d argue it’s not necessarily procrastination, but a strategy.

If this sounds familiar, you need not feel guilty about your evening routine or sleep. Honestly, you deserve a gold star for figuring out a good wind down and actually getting to bed (even if it’s a tad late).

How to stop procrastinating bedtime

However, some bedtime procrastination does warrant attention. For those procrastinating consistently, or for long periods of time, one factor makes a difference in getting to bed earlier: having support.

In one trial that successfully reduced bedtime procrastination, participants spoke to a therapist weekly for four weeks. In our trial, people completed a habits assessment and program over three weeks to substitute their bedtime procrastination with a different activity. Both approaches worked, but neither was simple.

It’s hard to change your behaviour. Doing it alone is harder. Simple self-control strategies, like ‘just stop!’ or ‘set a goal’ likely won’t work. After all, the advice of ‘just go to bed!’ when people generally struggle to go to bed is some of the worst advice out there. I know because I’ve tried it (it didn’t work). If you want to tweak your bedtime behaviour, considering a habits approach is a good starting point. So is showing a little kindness towards your tired brain.

Reducing bedtime procrastination can be extra tricky because of your brain and situation. It’s especially common among people with ADHD, new parents, those with unfulfilling jobs, or strong screen habits. Next week’s post will discuss how your unique psychology can affect your sleep.

So, is bedtime procrastination actually bad? For some, it certainly can be. But for many, some short casual scrolling or late-night curiosity probably doesn’t mean your sleep is broken. It just means you're human.