Discovering bedtime procrastination

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By Katherine Bruce

In 2014, Floor M. Kroese and colleagues published a paper they called ‘Bedtime procrastination: introducing a new area of procrastination’.

Carried out at the University of Utrecht, it was a piece of research that would go on to inspire and feed into countless studies around the world.

Here’s a quick summary of what they did, what they found, and what the results might tell us about how to end bedtime procrastination.

The big idea

Procrastination is a fascinating and popular area of research in the world of psychology. But in 2014, there was surprisingly little research into the relationship between procrastination and health behaviours such as sleep. Kroese and team wanted to know whether bedtime procrastination could be considered to be a specific type of procrastination, and how it affected sleep outcomes (how much sleep people got/daytime fatigue, etc).

Here's how the team defined bedtime procrastination:

“Failing to go to bed at the intended time, while no external circumstances prevent a person from doing so."

The research

First, the researchers developed The Bedtime Procrastination Scale: a set of nine statements that people scored on a scale of 1-5.

1. I go to bed later than I had intended.

2. I go to bed early if I have to get up early in the morning.

3. If it is time to turn off the lights at night I do it immediately.

4. Often I am still doing other things when it is time to go to bed.

5. I easily get distracted by things when I actually would like to go to bed.

6. I do not go to bed on time.

7. I have a regular bedtime which I keep to.

8. I want to go to bed on time but I just don't.

9. I can easily stop with my activities when it is time to go to bed.

Over 170 people completed the survey, along with a raft of questions measuring general procrastination, hours of sleep, daytime tiredness, self-regulation and impulsivity.

The results

When the researchers analysed the questionnaire responses, they found two key results:

1. People who scored lower on self-regulation were more likely to procrastinate at bedtime.
2. Bedtime procrastination was related to insufficient sleep above and beyond demographics and self-regulation.

These results supported their theory of bedtime procrastination being a novel construct within the area of procrastination and, for the first time, provided solid evidence that bedtime procrastination is a factor in insufficient sleep. The researchers said:

"As insufficient sleep is increasingly recognized as causing problems related to mental and physical well-being, it is important to further our understanding of contributing phenomena. In that sense, the current study adds to other sleep research highlighting the alarmingly high rates of people experiencing insufficient sleep."

What happened next…

Researchers across the globe have gone on to study bedtime procrastination in different populations and in different ways. The Bedtime Procrastination Scale in particular has been translated into multiple languages and replicated in countless studies, as researchers dig into the behaviour and explore potential ways to help.

Using the research to stop bedtime procrastination

If you're a bedtime procrastinator, here's what you might want to take from this seminal study:

Take it seriously: Perhaps the biggest takeaway from this study is simply that millions of people are losing sleep due to bedtime procrastination every night. It’s not just something a few people struggle with; it’s a global health issue.

Think about your screen time: This study was carried out in 2014, but even then the authors were discussing “the development of electrical devices and the 24/7 entertainment industry.” Would you still be a bedtime procrastinator if this was the 1960s?

Know your risk: If you struggle with self-regulation and tend to procrastinate in other areas of your life, you might well be at higher risk of bedtime procrastination. It’s worth giving your bedtimes some extra focus.

Find out more

This study was published in a journal called Frontiers in Psychology. You can read the paper on the website. Here's the full citation:

Kroese FM, De Ridder DTD, Evers C and Adriaanse MA (2014) Bedtime procrastination: introducing a new area of procrastination. Front. Psychol. 5:611. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00611