Revenge Bedtime Procrastination: Why You Sleep Late

Tired minds don’t plan well. Sleep first, plan later

Walter Reisch

Why do we sleep late? Is it because we don’t know that we need a 6-8 hours of sleep, or is it because we are binge watching Friends or The Office at 2a.m.?

The reason we usually end up avoiding early sleep is, we feel that if we sleep early, then we have to wake up early, which means going to our school, college, or office early, and thereby repeating the same cycle over and over again. We feel a lack of “me time” when we tend to go to bed early. Hence, we decide to postpone sleep by watching Netflix, playing Call of Duty, or watching the YouTube till late night, even though we’ve no idea how we ended up watching causes of American Civil War at 3 in the morning in the first place.

Psychologists have defined this phenomenon as revenge bedtime procrastination. The term “revenge” is used to describe the people taking “revenge” on their schedule in order to gain more leisure time by sacrificing their sleep, as they feel it is the only way for them to take control of their day-to-day schedule, and by extension, their life.

Let’s have a look at how Islam can help us counter this phenomenon:

1. Stop thinking of sleep as a “waste of time”:

One of the reasons for the “revenge” in the revenge bedtime procrastination is because at times, we feel that sleeping is nothing more than a waste of our time, and more often than not, we prefer to perform some or the other activity instead of going to bed. We need to understand that God created the process of sleeping for our own benefit. Instead of viewing it as a waste of time, we must look forward to sleeping.

“But when will I get the time to do some leisure activity,” you ask? Well, that brings us to the next point.

2. Doing activities in early mornings:

If we’re unable to find time for leisure activities due to early sleeping time, we can make time for them in the early mornings instead of late nights.

Muslims have to wake up before the sunrise for the morning prayer called the Fajr prayer. Not only does this encourages us to sleep early, but also helps us get early and use that time to perform all the activities we wish to perform, instead of late night. Even if you’re not a Muslim, you can use that time to perform your leisure activities.

3. Work-Life Balance:

Famously known as the 5 before 5 hadith. Sometimes, even fixing our sleeping schedule fails to allow us to have leisure time for recreational activities. One of the reasons for this is a poor work-life balance.

It is essential for us to realize two things: One, money is not everything in life, and second, corporate cannot care any less whether our life is slowly falling apart. If your job does not realize and respect that you have your own life apart from the office life, then you need to switch your job as soon as possible, for in the long run, it will harm you significantly.

4. Time Management:

Once we’ve attained a good work-life balance, and are able to find time for leisure activities, it is important to realize that we must use our free time to do some good for the society as a whole as well.

One of the most unique things about us human beings is that we are a species that gains happiness and satisfaction in giving back rather than taking something for our own selves. This is one of the reasons why we have more respect for the people selflessly helping the society than the top 10 billionaires of the world combined. We must utilize our youth and our money into giving something back to the world in order to make the lives of people easier.

In conclusion, revenge bedtime procrastination is a result of several complications that can be eased by aligning our sleeping schedule, making time out of our lives for our own selves, our leisure activities, our friends and families, and managing our time in order to strike an appreciable balance between our work life, and our life outside of our office.