And Start Sleeping Like a Baby
I knew I was in trouble when I realized I couldn’t go to sleep without it. No, it wasn’t Ambien® or melatonin or even a favorite blanket.
It was my friend, the iPad.
It didn’t matter if I actually watched what was on the screen, but simply knowing it was there gave me some strange comfort. I knew it was wrong — some nights, I stayed up way too late, sometimes scrolling, other times lazily watching a show. It always made me feel worse in the morning.
The official name for this behavior sounds ominous: Nighttime Revenge Procrastination.
NPR’s Life Kit Podcast says,
The idea comes from a Chinese phrase describing the habits of workers who skimp on sleep to make time for their own activities. This is a way for them to make up for long days at work.
Here in the U.S., it typically happens to people who pack their days and evenings with work, events, and errands. They feel they have no time for themselves. Parents, those with high-stress jobs, and many entrepreneurs commonly suffer from it.
Got a day gig and a side hustle or two? You’re likely to be in the Nighttime Revenge Procrastination group.
Drowning Out The Feelings
One night I realized my iPad was a constant companion in bed, along with my earbuds and my husband beside me.
It wasn’t always this way. For most of my life, I used to go to sleep with a book — not some electronic gizmo.
What happened? What changed in my life to start this habit that was detrimental to my life?
A few years earlier, my mom was under hospice care in a hospital bed at my sister’s house. On the nights I spent with her in Austin, I lay on a couch next to her, never feeling comfortable going to sleep. So I started holding my iPad, watching Orange Is The New Black in the middle of the night, and listening for her breathing sounds.
It was also a perfect way to not deal with my feelings about what was happening right before me: my mother was dying.
After my mom passed away and I was back home in Washington, DC, this habit was already ingrained in me. So without consciously thinking about what I was doing, the iPad came to bed with me.
The few times I did address the behavior, I brushed it off by saying to myself, “This is my only me time. I deserve it.”
Of course, it’s a really screwed-up way of thinking because I was essentially choosing to deprive myself of sleep, hurt my productivity, and damage my health.
I couldn’t use the excuse that I was always an early bird and a night owl most of my life — because I could tell I wasn’t functioning as well as I got older.
Five hours of sleep or less wouldn’t cut it anymore.
Down the Rabbit Hole of Sleep Science
The Sleep Foundation recommends healthy adults get seven to eight hours of sleep a night. If you have enough hours, you can experience the right amount of sleep stages to get both REM and Deep Sleep. Getting good sleep time and sleep quality helps your brain and your body recover from the day’s activities.
Today you can find multiple apps that help create what’s called good sleep hygiene. And most smartphones and watches have a sleep function built-in.
All these apps could tell me how long I slept and about my sleep quality, but they couldn’t help me get rid of my iPad.
It was up to me to cure myself of this nighttime sabotage.
7 Steps to Cure Your Nighttime Revenge Procrastination
After many starts and stops, here’s what I did to rid myself of my nighttime sabotage and start sleeping an astounding seven hours a night:
- Set a set sleep/wake schedule and stick to it — even on weekends. I stick to this at least five nights a week. When I fall back to old habits of staying up late on weekends — just because it’s my time — my body tells me how unhealthy and unhelpful this is.
- Keep a sleep diary. In the morning, I write about how long I slept and about my sleep quality. I also note how I feel in the morning — energetic and hopeful or tired and anxious. It’s where I can be honest about my feelings and whether I stuck to my schedule.
- Leave electronics in another room. I got a digital alarm clock, so I don’t depend on my phone. This actually wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I created a personal policy. I wrote it in my sleep diary. Mostly, I don’t bring my old friend, iPad, or even my phone. The Kindle is ok because it doesn’t contain bad light.
- Make a gratitude list before bed. I keep a notebook on my nightstand, and as I settle into bed, I write down three things I’m grateful for. Big things like my book getting published! Little things like my husband made me a tasty salad for lunch! I find that demonstrating gratitude at night helps me relax into a positive state of mind. Anxiousness begins to float away.
- Have a bedtime routine. This is a new routine — not the old, unhealthy one. After I brush my teeth, I wash my face and put on all my lotions and potions. I do my gratitude and some stretching. I read a book, Kindle without the blue light, or a magazine. I don’t read nonfiction because that tends to keep me awake.
- Create a sleep-focused environment. That means keeping your bedroom free of clutter — put your clothes away. Maintain a cool air temperature. Buy the best mattress and pillows you can afford. Get new bedding. Keep your bedroom dark. Use your bed for sleep, sex, and reading.
- Give yourself grace. This is probably the most important. Look, it’s not easy to change your behavior overnight. Start with one or two things and add another next week. And if you revisit old behaviors, acknowledge them, and begin again. Tonight’s another night.
Sleep doctors or the Sleep Foundation don’t sanction everything I do. For example, I still look at screens during the hour before bed. If you’re a freelancer, or have a day gig, a side gig, and a family, you start running out of time in the evening. Sleep doctors will tell you not to read in bed. That doesn’t work for me.
Also, if you have aging parents or children, you might need to keep the phone beside your bed at night.
You must incorporate what works for you and how you live your life.
Lastly, if you have trouble sleeping, get up and listen to the BBC Radio 4 Shipping Forecast. I learned about it recently in a New York Times article. It’s exactly what it says it is: a weather forecast for ships going around the British Isles. It sounds weird, but it makes me, and apparently many thousands of people worldwide, sleepy.
I hope you, too, start sleeping like a baby. If you have other tips that work, please share them in the comments.
Now go and take revenge on that Nighttime Sabotage — you’ll feel better and live longer.
