How Revenge Bedtime Procrastination Messes With Your Sleep

Does this scenario sound familiar? It is 11pm and you are tired. You have to get up for work in the morning. But you are still on the sofa, because the two hours after everyone else goes to bed are the only two hours today that belong only to you — "me time".

The internet named this revenge bedtime procrastination, and the name is catchy, but it is also apt, because it identifies the motive. It is not a failure of discipline. It is a rational response to a day with no margin in it.

If you feel tired, it is likely because of this and not because you have insomnia

If you are not fully aware of doing this on a regular basis, you may not immediately recognize that you are tired because you are staying up too late, to the point where it cuts into the sleep you need. It may be tempting to conclude that you are tired because you have insomnia.

One condition that rules out insomnia is that your sleep complaint cannot be explained purely by "inadequate opportunity or inadequate circumstances for sleep."1

Staying up by choice is an example of inadequate opportunity. You have not lost the ability to sleep well; you have run out of hours in the night.

This is what the scenario for someone with insomnia would look like: they get into bed at a reasonable hour, wanting very much to sleep, and cannot. They are not staying up on purpose — in fact, they are doing the exact opposite of revenge bedtime procrastination.

Tired from revenge bedtime procrastination is different from tired from insomnia

Here is the real test: given the opportunity, would you fall asleep quickly?

Let's say you regularly stay up until 1am to get time for yourself. If you went to bed at 10pm instead of your usual 1am and you fell asleep quickly, your tiredness is a result of revenge bedtime procrastination. If you had insomnia, you would have trouble falling asleep even when you went to bed earlier than usual.

This matters because the treatments point in opposite directions. Sleep restriction therapy, a core component of insomnia treatment, "limits sleep opportunity to match the patient's baseline sleep ability" — it deliberately reduces time in bed.4 Applied to someone who is already short on hours, it makes a short-sleep problem shorter.

Be careful of turning it into a habit

The American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the Sleep Research Society recommend that adults sleep 7 or more hours per night on a regular basis to promote optimal health, noting that habitually sleeping less than 7 hours "is associated with adverse health outcomes, including weight gain and obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease and stroke, depression, and increased risk of death."3 While 7 hours is an average and you may need less sleep, if staying up late regularly leaves you with less sleep than you need, the same risks still apply.

What to do instead

Even though we have been pointing out the risks of revenge bedtime procrastination, we understand the why behind it. Making time for yourself is important, and while it should not be at the cost of your sleep, there are other ways to find the time.

You might stick to your bedtime routine and sleep schedule, but create other pockets of time in the day for yourself — lunchtime, or several shorter periods spread through the day. Time for yourself does not have to be all or nothing, and with some creativity and flexibility there are ways to make it work for you and your schedule.

But if you find that revenge bedtime procrastination has become an entrenched habit, consider reaching out to a therapist to address what is motivating the behavior.