How Bedtime Revenge Procrastination is Creeping in Your Life

Heads up –  You may feel this to be a personal attack and feel like I’m calling you out because this is gonna be that much relatable. While writing this, I felt like I was calling myself out. But trust me, it’s not a personal attack.

Okay, so now hear me out. If you are someone in the 15 to 30 age bracket, or have something that you are completely invested in during the entire day, then I am about 80% sure that the further description is going to be so you. 

During the day you are busy in the hustle bustle of your schedule – be it your school or your office. You are so preoccupied with your duties and responsibilities that you do not have the time to look around, see and actually control what is happening. 

Because you are unable to pause from our busy lives, you tend to go with the flow of whatever is happening, rather than choosing and deciding what you want to happen. We become robots carrying out the same command from one day to another. We let go of the reigns of our lives to such an extent that we feel that life is controlling us, rather than the other way round. We feel stuck and unable to escape the monotonous patterns of our daily life.

This is where you put your rescue mechanism to use. 

You take in the night as much as you can and you absolutely love them. Because it’s the only time you can be you. You have time to think, to feel and to actually process what is happening around you. It’s the time when you do things consciously. You’re aware of what you’re doing.not doing it as mechanically as a robot. Some  utilise it to study, work or prepare because they feel that it’s the quietest time they can get. 

Some people on the other hand, use the night to binge watch Netflix, complete their web series and scroll through Instagram as per their heart’s content, because they think they have worked hard enough during the day.

Neither of these people are wrong. Each to their own. 

In short, people will do anything but go to sleep. This is because they don’t want their free time – where they are free from their daily obligations – to end and start a new day. 

Feels familiar? Me too.

Interestingly enough, this phenomenon has a name. It’s called bedtime revenge procrastination.

This basically stems from the dissatisfaction caused by the inability to control our own schedules. We don’t do things we actually want to do often enough and feel more or less controlled by someone or something else.

If you look closely, you’ll notice that children don’t tend to have bedtime revenge procrastination. Sure, they don’t want to sleep, but it’s not because they want to cherish their free time, it’s because they don’t want it to end at all. It is more evident as we grow up and become more busy and laden with work. 

The reason I can make out for this observation is the fact that children do more of the things they want to, than have to.

After all the serious talk, is there anything that we can do to quit the bedtime revenge procrastination (basically the whole reason why we have a terrible sleep schedule)?

Well, the good news is – Yes.

Once we identify the problem, identifying the solution is not that big of a task because the more complex part of figuring out the problem is done.

The simple answer to this is – taking back the control of your day. Even though what you will be doing is told by somebody else, how, when and why you do it is all dependent upon you.

You can start by scheduling your day, and planning out how it will go. You can create time specific tasks (because just a to-do list without time given to it rarely ever gets completed). These small steps will go a long way in regaining your control over your life.

P. S. When I was a bit younger I used to feel why do people talk so much about being stuck, feeling monotonous? Are they that sad and depressed? (I was quite naive, I didn’t understand ‘depressed’ in the full meaning of the word) But it was when I myself lived my life mechanically, that I knew what it felt to be stuck. Honestly, it’s not even that big of a deal if you do, or did feel stuck at some point. It can happen with anyone. The term just seems more scary and serious than it is.

Being stuck in the same cycle is not about being sad or depressed, it’s just that you feel like just going through the days without looking forward to it. You don’t feel disconnected or emotionless, it’s nothing like that. It only feels like a break would be nice from the same thing. 

Feeling that you’re doing the same things is not necessarily something that you feel after doing that specific thing for years. Even a few repetitive days can make you feel and think this way. 

For me, I realised this through online classes because it was just a repetition of the same things over and over again. But it was just because I wasn’t conscious of what I was doing. When you start paying attention and doing things with awareness and willingness, life becomes just as interesting again; even if you are doing the same things.