It’s 10:45 p.m. You have two screens in your line of sight: your phone in your hands and the TV in the distance, but you’re not really paying attention to either, and your brain is still running on overdrive. You spent the whole day doing things for your job, your kids, and your spouse, and this is the first hour that is truly yours. There’s a name for this, and it’s not insomnia. It’s called revenge bedtime procrastination.
Revenge bedtime procrastination is deliberately delaying sleep to squeeze in leisure time because you feel you lack personal freedom or control during the day. The term originated in Chinese social media, where people working brutal hours would take “revenge” on the day by staying up late.
This is a fitness column, so here’s why I care about this and why you should, too. In a well-known study, dieters who slept less lost 60 percent more muscle. If you’ve ever noticed you’re hungrier after a bad night’s sleep, studies back you up: short sleep leads to a few hundred extra calories of eating the next day. At 10:45 p.m., I need you to ask yourself one question: is this rest or is it protest?
Fix 1. Take some “you” time during daylight hours, on purpose. Set a timer for 30 minutes after dinner that is yours. Not dishes, not doing something for the kids, but whatever it was you were doing at 10:45 p.m.: scrolling, playing a game on your phone, doing the crossword, reading, or watching the news. Your revenge will fade away when there is nothing to avenge.
Fix 2. Early in the day, choose what time you will go to sleep that night, not at 10 p.m. when the willpower is gone. Set a phone alarm for 30 minutes before bed: that’s your wind-down timer. The same way you have an alarm to wake you up, you need an alarm to get you to bed.
Fix 3. Disconnect from your phone at night. Set up app limits and shutdown timers so social media doesn’t work after 9 p.m. Charge your phone in the kitchen so you don’t unintentionally start scrolling in bed. You can set your phone so calls from the people who matter always break through, even overnight. I put a setup guide at rockawaytrainer.com/bedtime that will walk you through setting all of this up.
Fix 4. Lift and get morning light. In a year-long study, people who did strength training slept about 40 minutes more per night than the cardio exercise group. Pair your lift with a morning walk on the boardwalk: the early light sets your body’s clock so you actually start getting sleepy at 10 p.m. instead of negotiating sleep with your brain.
One caution: if you go to bed on time and still sleep badly (loud snoring, waking up gasping, never feeling rested), that is a conversation for your doctor, not a willpower problem.
So tonight at 10:45 p.m., ask yourself if it’s rest or protest. You probably already know the answer. And on the nights you catch yourself up late anyway, don’t feel guilty. Tell yourself you did a good job today and let the day be enough. Reward yourself with a good night’s rest.
Jamal Khan, MPA, CSCS, is a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and a doctoral student in public health at Johns Hopkins University. He trains clients in their homes across the Rockaway peninsula.
