[HN Gopher] Revenge bedtime procrastination
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Revenge bedtime procrastination
Author : EndXA
Score : 164 points
Date : 2023-11-19 13:16 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (solvingprocrastination.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (solvingprocrastination.com)
| graposaymaname wrote:
| Thanks for putting a name on this.
|
| I've been suffering from this for a long time(and occasionally
| still do), but have started leaving my phone farther away and it
| has significantly improved.
|
| A part of me still feels that the sense of control and freedom
| which you get during the night is unparalleled.
| yamrzou wrote:
| > However, note that the activities that people engage in during
| revenge bedtime procrastination aren't necessarily enjoyable, and
| the procrastinator may engage with them simply out of a desire to
| feel in control.
|
| These attempts are an instance of the neurotic paradox[1], and
| keep repeating themselves because the desire to feel in control
| is never completely fulfilled. A repetition compulsion happens
| when unresolved conflicts continue to generate attempts at
| solutions which do not really work ... until a genuine solution
| is found. [2]
|
| [1] When an individual's way of coping with unconscious concerns
| creates even more problems in that individual's life.
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetition_compulsion
| rychco wrote:
| I've had a bad habit of doing this for years. I've recently tried
| to fix it but am struggling to let myself sleep & 'waste' the
| rest of the night. It's exactly as the article suggests, I do it
| because I feel like my life has no personal time/privacy
| otherwise.
| alluro2 wrote:
| Exactly the same, and "wasting" the time is the same sentiment
| I have. It means I get ~5h of sleep normally, and most of the
| activities I do in that time are what Tim Urban (in TED talk,
| "Inside the mind of a procrastinator", which is excellent)
| calls "Dark Playground" - something I next morning feel at
| least a bit guilty for spending time on.
|
| For the last couple of days, during some workshops, I've slept
| for ~9h a day, and difference in my mential acuity today vs
| otherwise is impossible to deny / wave away...
| aceazzameen wrote:
| Exactly the same for me. I subconsciously try to fight the
| sleep from my eyes while trying to do any activity that won't
| make me feel like I wasted the evening. And sometimes I have to
| yell at myself in my head just to go to bed when my eyes are
| already half closed.
|
| I don't know how to stop this habit. Maybe knowing there's a
| name and that it happens to other people might help me catch
| myself.
| sleepworkasap wrote:
| Charitable take:
|
| Revenge procrastination is, as the article says, a symptom of
| poor emotional regulation. Our emotions push us towards having
| leisure/entertainment 24/7 but that is obviously not healthy even
| for the financially independent. Simultaneously, there is an
| ever-expanding universe of things to experience/study/engage with
| so there will always be reasons to feel that your obligations are
| causing you to miss out on life. So the emotional regulation is
| about accepting that you won't be able to do everything in life
| and making conscious decisions and sacrifices about what is
| important to you.
|
| Uncharitable take:
|
| Any article about revenge procrastination that doesn't include a
| call to action about legislating massive PTO minimums or a
| 30-hour workweek is an element of the ongoing class war. Convince
| labor that their struggles are internal and they'll never
| organize against you. That there is little political will to
| expand workers' rights or benefits suggests that capital is in a
| dominating position in the battlefield of public opinion.
|
| >How to avoid revenge bedtime procrastination
|
| >...
|
| >Think about--and potentially write down--how this behavior harms
| you.
|
| As always, the truth is somewhere in-between.
| mablopoule wrote:
| Yeah, I'm not for mindless consumption of social media designed
| to make you addicted, but this article really feels like the
| medicalization of what would be described before as a slave
| revolt.
|
| Playfulness isn't even a basic human traits, it's an animal
| trait, and yet the lack of any consideration in this article on
| whether the work/life balance might truly be unhealthy and
| people just need a breather sometimes, this feels truly
| sociopathic.
| zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
| It's because they're trying to sell the reader their
| services. If it's a solvable medical problem then these guys
| can help, for a fee.
| zer00eyz wrote:
| Bao Fu Xing Ao Ye is the Chinese source of this.
|
| A place were 996 is also thrown around a lot. That's 9am to 9pm
| 6 days a week.
| rybosome wrote:
| This articulates well why the tone of this article irritates me
| so much.
|
| > Furthermore, revenge bedtime procrastination is also
| associated with the concept of deliberate procrastination,
| which in this context occurs when people intentionally delay
| going to sleep, because they feel that they deserve some time
| for themselves.
|
| People do deserve time for themselves. To frame that as a
| feeling that people have rather than a basic need is insulting,
| like "people feel that they need human contact", or "people
| feel that they need regular sleep".
|
| Sure, spending hours on social media is a luxury (and a waste
| of time) rather than a human right, but it's absurd to imply
| that someone who literally does nothing but work and meet
| others' needs has an emotional problem for wanting a pocket of
| time to use as they choose.
| tunnuz wrote:
| Yup, there has to be something beyond work and parenting (if
| not, they'll probably both suffer in the long term).
| Vt71fcAqt7 wrote:
| >Any article about revenge procrastination that doesn't include
| a call to action about legislating massive PTO minimums or a
| 30-hour workweek is an element of the ongoing class war.
| Convince labor that their struggles are internal and they'll
| never organize against you
|
| Do you think eg. Waren Buffet paid for this article to be
| written? And do you have any data that show that people who
| work are more affected by the issue in the article than people
| who don't (eg. highschoolers?)
| kingkongjaffa wrote:
| I did this a lot this year, usually until 3am every night.
|
| I'm a remote worker who works and games at the same desk and
| chair.
|
| Often I would lie to myself about being productive and then quit
| a tutorial after a few minutes and load up a game instead.
|
| I found I stopped since about September, mainly by telling myself
| nothing really productive happens after 11pm and to just go to
| bed.
| bentcorner wrote:
| > _Often I would lie to myself about being productive and then
| quit a tutorial after a few minutes and load up a game
| instead._
|
| I struggled with this exact thing. For me personally I was able
| to focus better by dual-booting my machine so that my personal
| desktop/storage/workspace was distinct from my work stuff.
| Currently I have a work laptop I use on the same desk and I
| turn off my personal machine during the work day.
| The_Colonel wrote:
| Framing it is a revenge doesn't make sense for me. It's more like
| I'm asserting myself as a real person with interests, not just
| obligation fulfillment machine.
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| Revenge makes sense for me as I feel I'm "getting back" at the
| circumstances of my life for taking time away from me
| otikik wrote:
| I think it's because it was translated from a Chinese
| expression. Probably the original had different nuances.
| kd5bjo wrote:
| I take some issue with the "revenge" terminology, as it implies
| an unhealthy adversarial framing of the problem. Whenever I have
| had to deal with this myself, I've always chosen to view it as my
| subconscious prioritizing some kind of emotional need over my
| need for sleep.
|
| Viewed that way, the solution is obvious: Identify the emotional
| need that I've been neglecting and figure out how to satisfy it
| during the normal course of my day/week. Like most simple and
| obvious solutions, however, putting it into practice can
| sometimes be quite difficult.
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| Not to dimish the problem but to add my own experience, consider
| that a delayed sleep onset can be confused with bedtime
| procrastination.
|
| My circadian rythm tends to 25-26 hours. Every day I feel sleepy
| 2 hours later than the day before. That means every day I'm
| tempted to delay my bedtime by 2 hours because I don't feel
| sleepy at all. For the longest time I though the my difficulty
| falling asleep was habitual/emotional/hygienic.
|
| After a decade of experimentation with caffeine, lighting, food,
| meditation, journaling, restricted sleep etc etc etc the best
| solution for me by far has been a low-dose melatonin supplement
| one hour before my desired bedtime. As long as I do that I hardly
| ever stay up longer than I should, and go to sleep immediately.
| Food for thought if you have chronic trouble falling asleep and
| don't feel like there's anything terribly 'off' about your
| habits.
|
| (If I'm anxious/stressed I still sleep badly)
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| You "listen" to anything or silence?
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| On melatonin? I'm on YouTube until my head is too heavy to
| hold up (a novel experience).
|
| Off melatonin? I tried silence among other things but it just
| makes me either bored or anxious. No way to spend 5-10% of
| your day.
| Obscurity4340 wrote:
| U ever tried listening to an anchor piece or book that you
| listen to every night ritualistically? I feel like it works
| equally well for children and adults. Everyone loves a
| story they've heard a million times that tells their body
| implicitly its time for nighty bye bye :)
|
| Edit: also, you ever try cutting the visual so there's only
| audio? Try it and report back ;)
| noman-land wrote:
| Is there a name for this circadian misalignment? I've never
| done any serious testing but over time have experienced the
| same realization, that my ideal day seems to be longer than 24
| hours.
| nmarinov wrote:
| There is some research and some terminology but not a whole
| lot of conclusive stuff.
|
| Look up circadian rhythm sleep disorders, non-24-hour sleep-
| wake disorder, delayed sleep phase disorder, free running
| sleep.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| The name is "being human", and it's probably not
| pathological: subjects kept in environments without external
| timekeepers (such as sunrise/sunset or clocks even) tend to
| keep a 25 hour circadian rhythm.
|
| Our bodies respond strongly to food and light and caffeine.
| Food when you wake up, and darkness as you're going to sleep.
|
| Remember that caffeine has a half-life of up to 9 hours, so
| if you're having trouble winding down at bedtime, that might
| be attributable to the cup of coffee or soda you had at
| lunchtime.
| pawelduda wrote:
| Up to 9 hours? More like 4-6 AFAIK
| zemvpferreira wrote:
| The problem I've seen with sleep/caffeine research is
| that most of it is done with non-habitual doses.
|
| Half-life might be such and such, but people who drink a
| coffee after dinner for 20 years sleep better than non-
| coffee-drinkers who have an espresso after lunch that one
| time.
| doubled112 wrote:
| Anecdotal, but exactly.
|
| I drink roughly a pot of coffee a day. Keeps me in the
| game.
|
| Just one more at dinner is not going to keep me awake at
| night. Maybe another pot, but that's still a maybe.
| pawelduda wrote:
| I used to drink yerba mate almost daily (higher caffeine
| content than average coffee) because I thought it kept me
| in the game. At one point I had to go on very strict diet
| due to health issue so took one week break. I never felt
| urge to drink it again, my avg energy levels are higher,
| and anxiety levels lower since stopping (2 months so far)
| manmal wrote:
| Does this occur for you even when you get exposure to bright
| sunlight after waking, and turning off the lights at 9PM or
| so?
| anktor wrote:
| Absolutely agreed. I've had some type of insomnia on and off
| most of my life, last year was particularly bad. Started taking
| melatonin, first day I fell asleep and rested like I couldn't
| for the past year. Asked my doctor about and he told me to keep
| taking it as long as I felt it worked, since anything he could
| give would be much much more addictive
| Xcelerate wrote:
| Since having children, this "revenge procrastination" has
| switched from late night to early morning as I typically fall
| asleep by 9 PM now. Imagine setting an alarm for 4 AM just to
| have some time for yourself in the morning. I wouldn't call it
| wasted time though. I'm typically learning about machine learning
| or something.
| Tade0 wrote:
| This was my way of making time for my stuff without disturbing
| my sleep schedule as a parent.
|
| The philosophy basically is: do I want to do it bad enough to
| wake up early?
|
| Sometimes yes, sometimes no. I learned a thing or about myself
| in the process.
| swimwiththebeat wrote:
| It's amazing how much attaching a name to some phenomenon or
| problem and discussing it helps in understanding it and taking
| the first steps to address it. Knowing that bedtime
| procrastination is a real thing that affects others not only
| gives me comfort, but also helps me think about it very
| consciously and figure out how to take the first steps to solve
| it.
|
| I never thought about it from the revenge and agency perspective,
| but I appreciate the author at least trying to hypothesize why
| people do this despite it being detrimental. All the suggestions
| and tips in the article are also incredibly helpful.
| otikik wrote:
| Names are important. One of the most important things, perhaps.
| It conditions how we think. For example, the denomination
| "fiscal paradise" could have been "tax evasion den" instead.
| extragood wrote:
| I had a similar revelation at work recently.
|
| I've lead a team for the past several years. Our productivity
| and the quality of the work never was never questioned for the
| first ~4 years. We consistently met or exceeded expectations,
| and everyone was happy.
|
| In the past year of belt tightening, my leadership and methods
| have come under scrutiny by our executives. I've spent many
| hours defending my decisions, especially team structure. The
| thing which finally got them (mostly) off my back was sharing
| the name of the methodology that most resembled what I had
| built. Suddenly my explanations check out.
|
| While I'm happy to have a lot of that pressure relieved, it's
| also been a frustrating experience. My credibility relied on
| someone else giving a name to a methodology that I devised
| independently, and that was more important than any of the
| results of the previous 4 years.
| simmschi wrote:
| Ha, I can relate to that. What is the name of your leadership
| style?
| elynde wrote:
| Bedtime procrastination is my kryptonite. Every other habit like
| working hard, exercising, eating right I do well at but can't fix
| this.
|
| I've battled with it my whole life. Even as a toddler I would
| stay up late reading in secret. There is just something about the
| stillness when everyone else is asleep where I feel like my brain
| can finally wind down/process the day/kick back and relax.
|
| Anyone else struggled so badly and fixed it? How?
| jraby3 wrote:
| Maybe fix it by accepting it and yourself.
|
| I love getting up early for the same reason. Everyone is asleep
| everything is quiet and I can just relax in a way I can't when
| people are around.
|
| If you can, try to arrange your morning routine to give you
| some extra time to sleep and enjoy the quality time at night.
| Baeocystin wrote:
| To second this- I have been an extreme night owl my entire
| life. Trying to sync my sleep/wake to an early morning
| schedule was to live a miserable life of permanent jetlag. It
| wasn't thriving; it was barely surviving, with no mental
| juice left for love or hobbies.
|
| I finally had a health event that was a real come-to-Jesus
| moment about 10 years ago. As part of dealing with it, I
| learned to accept my nature as being what it is.
|
| And now, 10 years on, my life has never been better. That
| doesn't mean easy or without issue, but I'm finally living as
| myself. And that makes all the difference.
| grecy wrote:
| For me it's all about removing the tempting things I would
| normally waste time with. Go camping and don't take a phone or
| book or kindle. Buy night two I'm asleep before my head hits
| the pillow!
|
| So at home I try to do the same. Before reaching for the laptop
| or phone I ask myself what I'm going to do with it, and if the
| answer Is waste time, I try very hard not to pick it up (doing
| something else makes that easier - load the dishwasher, get
| lunch ready for tomorrow, etc)
| mindslight wrote:
| On this topic, camping is "cheating", IMO. I naturally want
| to wake up somewhere around 10AM. (I'm sure I've got
| something like "delayed phase sleep syndrome", but don't see
| the point of medicalizing/externalizing it rather than just
| knowing myself and mitigating the harm from society). But
| stick me in a tent outdoors and it's a few short days until
| I'm waking up with the sun, or even the birds.
| grecy wrote:
| Go to bed with the sun at home, that will help you wake up
| with the sun.
| mindslight wrote:
| I'm sure light has much to do with it, but that's a poor
| proposition at this time of year in the northern
| hemisphere. And frankly often times when it starts to get
| dark is when I actually start to feel fully awake.
|
| Of course the caffeine dependence I've built up lately
| doesn't help that. It's one hell of a high interest loan,
| and there's never a good time to pay it off.
| grecy wrote:
| I live in the Yukon, I've never felt better than when I
| go to bed with the sun, even in winter.
|
| When your body sleeps for 14+ hours, it's telling you
| something
| Baeocystin wrote:
| When I lived in Montana, I definitely slept more hours in
| the winter. Kind of enjoyed it, too. Those long evenings
| of nothing much but staring in to the fire (house was
| heated with a Franklin stove) were good for the soul.
| hotnfresh wrote:
| I've played with eliminating nighttime lighting (aside
| from candles) and after-dark screens _period_ , and can
| confirm, it puts one's "clock" closer to where it should
| be. Which shouldn't be surprising.
|
| It is hard to keep up. If I were dictator of the world
| I'd experiment with hibernating the whole economy a bit
| in the Winter. Three months or so of 5-6 hour workdays.
| karmakaze wrote:
| I can't say I've _struggled_ with it--I 've leaned into it and
| accepted it as how I get my own time. The quality of that time
| however is low since it comes at the end of the day. Sometimes
| I'll have a large meal, short but deep nap, then have quality
| late night time. The 'fix' seems to have come from being able
| to get by on fewer hours of sleep as I get older. Other times
| like around DST change, I'm able to get time at the beginning
| of the day, which if I plan or think of something doesn't
| merely go sleeping in while half-awake.
| yason wrote:
| I consider it a feature, not a bug.
|
| Also read in the dark with a flashlight when I was a kid. I'm
| writing this near midnight with my wife and our dog soundly
| asleep. I'll be around for an hour or two until I switch off to
| sleep myself. All I hear is the faint hum of my laptop fan and
| the car lights that pass by on the road in distance. Just
| perfect.
| pomian wrote:
| Some life lessons from a fellow night owl. Don't worry about
| it! Don't schedule important meetings at 8 am! If you need to
| become a regular at some place at 8 am, then they only solution
| for a night owl, is to get up before 6; 5:30 for example - then
| you are foolling your body into thinking you're still getting
| up at night.
| cortesoft wrote:
| As a parent of young children, the only alternative is to
| completely give up any personal time. If I go to bed when the
| kids go to bed, I have zero time for any of my own hobbies.
|
| I just don't think I am willing to do that.
| tkiolp4 wrote:
| Perhaps off topic: if I go to sleep at 10pm (something I never
| do, except if I have to wake up very early for whatever reason)
| and wake up at 6am, I feel like crap. Very sleepy and it takes me
| a couple of hours to be fully awake. Those 8h don't feel the same
| as when I sleep from 1am to 9am, for example (my regular sleeping
| time).
| crise1221 wrote:
| I think that might have to do with your body clock and
| schedule. As you said, those are your "regular" sleeping times.
| If you start to consistently go to bed at 10pm and make that
| "regular", you'll get the same quality of sleep as with your
| current schedule. But, ultimately, if 1am to 9am works for you
| and there are no major negative effects to your life, I
| wouldn't think there is anything wrong with continuing to keep
| that schedule.
| CowOfKrakatoa wrote:
| Haven't read the comments, but I have something to contribute. I
| am married and a parent of a 1.5-year-old child. Employed at a
| full-time job, working out is something I consider mandatory.
| Adding all this together, plus household chores, it leaves little
| time for personal projects or just chilling out by myself. I used
| to stay up late to get some alone time, but as the article
| describes, it is not sustainable, especially for parents.
|
| I had a project I wanted to work on, but it was difficult to
| focus at night after everything else was taken care of. So I
| flipped it. I started waking up early. I aim for 5 am; recently,
| it's been more like 6 am, but I've been thinking of trying out 4
| am. I've never been a morning person, but you do get used to it
| after a few weeks. Now, I use the fresh morning energy to work on
| my side project, and from the moment my daughter wakes up, I
| start with all the responsibilities. I work out in the evening,
| and I don't dread going to sleep early because I wake up to my
| time. So, the earlier I get to bed, the more "me" time I get.
| doubled112 wrote:
| This probably would work for most but mine tried to kill me.
|
| My oldest had a stretch where 5:30am was his normal, natural
| wake up time. By stretch I mean I think he was 6 or 7 and
| finally grew out of it.
|
| Alright I'm ready. Let's go!
|
| I'm usually a 7-8am until to 12-1am kind of person, so that was
| tough.
| MichaelRo wrote:
| Actually I do the "two sleeps" routine, particularly since I read
| about it and found out it's not something broken with me but it's
| (was) rather the normal way to sleep.
|
| After the evening meal and a little screen time I'm starting to
| feel very sleepy and a bit annoyed because I would like to do
| more activity but it becomes uncomfortable and unpleasant to
| fight biology. So I turn off the light and put myself in bed with
| the full intention of sleeping all night if so happens to be, but
| not opposed to wake up again if also, it happens.
|
| More often than not after 1-2 hours of nap, I wake up feeling
| refreshed so I turn on the light and screens (TV, phone,
| computer) and do more leisure stuff. Not gaming, which pumps the
| wrong hormones and will make it hard to go to sleep again.
| Browsing the net, listening to music, watching another episode
| from the many comedy series I started... 1-2 hours later I feel
| sleepy again and this time it's for good, lasts till morning.
| Even if I wakeup (and I do wake up 1-2 times during the night to
| hit the bathroom), I'm very drowsy. Half asleep make it to the
| bathroom cursing the weak bladder then crawl back in my bed and 5
| minutes later I'm already dreaming.
| DenisM wrote:
| One thing that might help a little is listening to a podcast
| while falling asleep. You're doing something enjoyable that
| doesn't disrupt your sleep schedule.
| EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK wrote:
| I have another name for that: Refusal to Concede. Before fall
| asleep, I still have a chance to do something great with my life.
| After, it's officially another wasted day.
| simmschi wrote:
| This behavior is probably pretty normal for anyone with a job,
| family and kids. I wouldn't associate it with 'revenge' though.
|
| For me 2 things help with the sleep deprivation, power naps and
| going to bed super early once in a while.
|
| Power naps started working for me nicely once I removed the
| stressful requirement of actually having to sleep. I just set my
| phone timer for 20 minutes and allow my mind to float away. Just
| hitting sleep for a few minutes this way is super helpful and
| refreshing. And 20 mins you can easily sneak in even into a work
| day, or when coming home from work.
|
| The going to bed super early is just me crashing once in a while.
| Sleep deprivation accumulates and for the sake of my health I
| just let my body crash at 7pm. Happens maybe once a month.
| boh wrote:
| When you're in bed and about to sleep you have the most control
| of your attention. You're not on your phone, no one is trying to
| talk to you. The most access most people have of their attention
| is right before bed. Things like self-awareness, worry, ambition,
| memories that might've been ignored all day, are all of a sudden
| in the foreground of our perception, and a person finds
| themselves actually thinking rather than just reacting to
| stimuli.
| bmc7505 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_buying
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(page generated 2023-11-19 23:01 UTC)