Bedtime procrastination: why we stay up even when we are tired

Daniel Gavalec · Updated October 17, 2026

Bedtime procrastination means going to bed later than you intended even though nothing is stopping you – just one more video, a few more minutes on your phone. It is often not laziness but a wish to finally have time for yourself after a day full of obligations, plus evening tiredness that makes it harder to stop. It helps to have your "me time" earlier in the evening, set a clear end-of-day signal and get your phone out of the bedroom. Below: what research says, how much sleep experts recommend, and six steps to get to bed earlier.

What bedtime procrastination is

Floor Kroese and colleagues (2014) described bedtime procrastination as going to bed later than you planned without an external reason. It is not about finishing work or looking after a baby. It is the evenings when you could go to bed, want to go to bed – and still keep scrolling, watching the next episode or "just looking something up".

Online, one version of it got the name revenge bedtime procrastination: people who have little time for themselves during the day take it back at night, even at the cost of sleep.

Why we do it

• Time for yourself. After a day of work, school and obligations, the evening is the only time nobody wants anything. Ending it with sleep feels like a loss.
• Evening tiredness. A tired brain finds it harder to stop and harder to resist "just one more". That is why things you would easily refuse in the morning win at night.
• No natural end. Feeds and series never finish; the next video starts by itself.
• A head full of tomorrow. When a stressful day is coming, sleep brings it "closer" – so you put it off.

It is the same mechanism as other kinds of procrastination: short-term relief now, the cost tomorrow (more in why do I procrastinate).

What it means for your sleep

Kroese and colleagues (2016) studied a representative sample of Dutch adults: those who put off bedtime more slept less and felt more tired during the day, even after accounting for other factors. It is correlational research, but it makes sense.

How much sleep do we need? An expert panel of the US National Sleep Foundation recommends 7–9 hours for adults, 8–10 hours for teenagers and 7–8 hours for older adults (Hirshkowitz et al., 2015). If you regularly sleep less and feel tired, bedtime procrastination may be one of the things worth changing.

This article is general information, not medical advice. If you cannot fall asleep even when you go to bed on time, often wake at night or are very sleepy during the day, talk to a doctor.

6 steps to go to bed earlier

1. Have your "me time" earlier. Plan an hour just for you at 8 pm, not at midnight. If you get it earlier, you will not need to steal it from sleep.
2. Set an end-of-day signal. An alarm not for waking up but for "start getting ready for bed" – say at 10:15 pm.
3. Phone out of the bedroom. Charge it in the kitchen or hallway. Get a simple alarm clock if you need one.
4. Write tomorrow down. Five minutes of tomorrow's to-do list; in a sleep-lab study it shortened the time people needed to fall asleep (Scullin et al., 2018). Method in brain dump.
5. An if–then plan for the critical moment. "When the episode ends, I turn off the TV and go brush my teeth." How to write one: implementation intentions.
6. Kindly and gradually. Move your bedtime by 15 minutes every few days, not two hours at once. If it does not work, no guilt – try again tomorrow.

The full evening routine these steps fit into is in the evening routine.

A 30-minute wind-down (example)

Shift the times to suit you – what matters is the order and a clear start.

Try it now: an end-of-day signal

In CORTEX (free for everyone) set a repeating task "End of day: phone on charger @22:00 *daily" or a habit "In bed by 10:30" and watch the streak of days you managed it. In notification settings you can turn on quiet hours so the app does not disturb you in the evening.