ATLANTA (CNN) – After a long day of work from home, Hadly Clark spends the evening hours smoothly sliding her phone. Boost through your usual bedtime at 9:30 pm in favor of online shopping and commuting to social media.
Before Clark finds out, the clock says 1 in the morning. She finally falls asleep and wakes up the next morning exhausted, her phone on the nightstand ringing the alarm at 6am.
This cycle of waking up and regretting it the next day is too familiar to many people, even before the pandemic. In recent years, the phenomenon has been dubbed “delaying bedtime revenge.”
Postponing bedtime revenge may be a more recent term, but the type of sleep schedule it describes is not, said Dr. Rajkumar Dasgupta, an assistant professor of clinical medicine at the Faculty. of Keck Medicine from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles.
“Postponing bedtime revenge is just a cry from hard-working people and they are actually trying to postpone bedtime for a while so they can get something back for themselves. said Dasgupta.
It’s normal for people to want time for themselves at night, but it becomes a problem if they are tired during the waking hours due to lack of sleep, he said.
Clark, an associate director of FasterCures who lives in Alexandria, Virginia, said she had no trouble falling asleep until the pandemic forced her to work from home. Her internal clock wakes her up between 5:30 and 7:00 a.m. regardless of the afternoon she stays awake, so she has had to resort to coffee and soda to stay awake during the day, she said.
His days used to follow constant routines, but since he suffered the pandemic, Clark said he has struggled to create a nightly routine. He partially attributed it to not wanting to accept pandemic life.
“If I adapt to the new way of life, it’s like accepting that this is a reality and I don’t want it to be,” Clark said.
Brian Sinclair, a software engineer in Albuquerque, New Mexico, said postponing bedtime revenge robbed him of sleep long before the pandemic hit. He started about five years ago when his second child was born, leaving him less time for himself, he said.
“There’s a lot of lack of control in my life,” Sinclair said, and the evening hours are when he said he’s regaining control. He is often found playing video games or falling into a rabbit hole on YouTube, he said.
Why do people do it?
Staying awake until scrolling or watching television makes no sense could be someone’s attempt to reduce stress, said Vaile Wright, senior director of health innovation at the American Psychological Association.
“We know that simply moving around without thinking and not interacting significantly actually increases our stress rather than reducing it,” Wright said.
People may also have difficulty closing at the end of the workday, because the boundaries have blurred since the pandemic began, he said.
Sinclair, who currently works at Indeed, is a veteran who works from home and has been moving for almost more than ten years. However, her work schedule changed when the pandemic hit to accommodate her children’s online learning.
We know that simply moving around without thinking and not interacting significantly actually increases our stress rather than reducing it.
–Vaile Wright, American Psychological Association
Sinclair spent part of his morning helping his son in online school because the 8-year-old is struggling to stay focused. He then gives the responsibility to his wife most of the day.
Consequences of staying up late
Not getting enough sleep leads to sleep deprivation, which can affect your mental and physical health, Dasgupta said. He said some common consequences are decreased productivity and increased cortisol, a stress hormone.
When you go to bed significantly later and wake up around the usual time, you risk accumulating sleep debts for lost hours, according to Dasgupta. The only way to get rid of sleep debt is to sleep the number of hours you have lost, which he says is not possible for most people.
Studies show that the weekend is not able to close your eyes closed nor is it the most effective way to compensate for sleep loss. According to a study published in Current Biology, people were unable to compensate for the effects of sleep deprivation during the week, such as snacking, weight gain, and circadian rhythm disorders.
The researchers found that if someone sleeps on the weekends but their sleep quality is poor, they tend to overeat and gain weight.
The amount of sleep someone should sleep is different for each person, but in general adults should sleep seven to eight hours a night, Dasgupta said.
Using technology late at night can also affect our sleep, he said. The screens emit blue light, which according to Dasgupta suppresses the release of melatonin, a hormone that helps control the sleep cycle.
How to stop sabotaging your sleep schedule
It’s totally normal for your sleep schedule to be imperfect, especially during a pandemic, Dasgupta said. He recommended that people go to sleep both physically and mentally.
Dasgupta said most people like their bedrooms “quiet, dark and cool.” He also suggested that people participate in an activity they enjoy, such as meditation, that helps them fall asleep.
Turning off the electronics and not taking them to bed is another strategy for falling asleep, he said.
A strategic power nap could also reduce a person’s sleep debt, according to Dasgupta. He recommended a 15 to 20 minute nap between noon and 2 p.m. A nap could already lead someone to deeper stages of sleep, he said, which could cause a longer sleep inertia, the drowsiness one feels after waking up.
During the day, people should push their limits and schedule time for themselves, Wright said. Clark said he works to schedule breaks in his day to do activities like exercise.
He said this will help him “have time to take a breather that is also good for my physical and mental health.”
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