Transform Your Bedtime Habits And stop Revenge Bedtime Procrastination
The Life Solved Podcast | EPISODE #8
With host Lauren Eckert, M.Ed., Executive Functioning Coach and guest Dr. Erin Baehr
Introduction
Are you one of the many adults who find themselves sacrificing sleep to indulge in personal activities or leisure time late into the night? If so, you may be experiencing revenge bedtime procrastination—a common phenomenon that can take a toll on your health and well-being. In this blog post, we'll explore what revenge bedtime procrastination is, why it happens, and most importantly, how you can break free from this cycle to prioritize your sleep and reclaim your vitality.
Understanding Revenge Bedtime Procrastination:
Revenge bedtime procrastination refers to the tendency to stay up later than intended, even when you know you should be sleeping, as a way to reclaim personal time lost during the day. It's a behavior characterized by delaying bedtime to indulge in leisure activities, such as scrolling through social media, watching TV, or engaging in hobbies, despite the consequences of sleep deprivation.
The Consequences of Sleep Deprivation:
Before delving into strategies to combat revenge bedtime procrastination, it's essential to understand the profound impact of sleep deprivation on your health and well-being. Lack of adequate sleep can weaken your immune system, increase your risk of chronic diseases like heart disease and diabetes, impair your cognitive function and decision-making abilities, and negatively affect your mood and mental health.
The Psychology Behind Revenge Bedtime Procrastination:
Revenge bedtime procrastination is often driven by underlying psychological factors, such as the need for control, perfectionism, or feelings of inadequacy. You may feel compelled to stay up late to regain a sense of autonomy over your time or to pursue activities that make you feel productive or fulfilled. However, this behavior can ultimately backfire, leading to feelings of guilt, anxiety, and exhaustion.
Breaking the Cycle:
Fortunately, there are several strategies you can implement to overcome revenge bedtime procrastination and establish healthy sleep habits:
Set Boundaries: Establish clear boundaries around bedtime and commit to prioritizing sleep as an essential aspect of self-care. Resist the temptation to sacrifice sleep for the sake of personal activities or leisure time.
Create a Bedtime Routine: Develop a relaxing bedtime routine that signals to your body that it's time to wind down and prepare for sleep. This could include activities like reading, taking a warm bath, or practicing relaxation techniques like deep breathing or meditation.
Limit Screen Time: Reduce your exposure to electronic devices, particularly blue light-emitting screens, before bedtime. Blue light can suppress the production of melatonin, a hormone that regulates sleep, making it harder for you to fall asleep and stay asleep.
Practice Stress Management: Implement stress-reducing techniques, such as mindfulness meditation, progressive muscle relaxation, or journaling, to help calm your mind and promote relaxation before bedtime.
Seek Professional Help: If you struggle with chronic sleep issues or underlying mental health conditions, don't hesitate to seek support from a healthcare provider or therapist. They can help identify underlying factors contributing to your sleep problems and provide personalized treatment and support.
Conclusion:
Revenge bedtime procrastination may seem like a harmless habit, but its long-term consequences can be detrimental to your health and well-being. By understanding the underlying factors driving this behavior and implementing practical strategies to prioritize sleep and manage stress, you can break free from the cycle of procrastination and enjoy the restorative benefits of a good night's sleep. Remember, your health is your most valuable asset—make sleep a priority and reap the rewards of vitality and well-being.
Transcript
Episode 7: Mastering Lasting Change: A Practical Guide to Achieving Your Goals
[00:00:57] Lauren: Hello and welcome back to the Life Solved Podcast. I am so excited to talk with you today about how we make lasting changes in our lives. So the reason I want to talk about this right now is because I think that, and I fall into this trap too, but January can often feel for some people really refreshing, like this new start and opportunity to make these big changes in my life and set goals and just like we have all this momentum.
For other people, sometimes it can feel actually kind of overwhelming and kind of like aimless, you know, like the holidays are really busy and kind of planned out and then we have this just like open endedness at the start of the new year. So whichever category you fall into, I want to speak today and talk to you about my personal approach to the beginning of the new year and making change and then also talk with you about strategies if you have found yourself working toward a goal working on something endlessly. And a year ago, maybe you were in the same spot or similar, and you're just not seeing progress, then this podcast is for you. Because we're going to talk about strategies to be consistent in making changes in your life. So let me just first kind of personally talk a little bit about my tendencies around goal setting and trying to make change in my life to habit or routine.
My tendency, and I think I see this in a lot of my clients as well, is to feel like, okay, it's time to make a change and so therefore it's got to be a big one and I've got to start all or nothing and I'm going to go all in and I'm going to be like so excited about it, so focused on it, and then Fairly quickly, I start to lose momentum, I let myself down, maybe I feel disappointed that I'm not sticking to things the way I thought I was going to or the way I wanted to, because life kicks in, stress kicks in, and I'm just not able to sustain it, so then I kind of create this cycle where I feel really Guilty that I'm not doing it well, I backslide, and then I might end up even in a worse spot than I was before with that particular goal. Whether this is around eating, exercise, getting better sleep, maybe a professional goal. This cycle is something I see for a lot of my clients as well. And so this is something that I really noticed in myself a number of years ago, and hmm, why am I doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, right?
So. For me personally, I have switched up how I try to make changes in my life. And what I mean by that is, I do not start all or nothing. I do not start big, sweeping, huge goals that are hard to achieve, difficult to sustain progress toward. That does not work for me. I know there are people that Maybe they are motivated like that.
And I, I do think there's value in really having a big goal, like an exciting big goal. But for me, and for many of my clients, I have found that really small, manageable steps toward progress that I can sustain. over time is going to build the foundation for lasting change in my life. And so when I start a new year, and I have to be honest, I kind of fall into that category sometimes where the new year overwhelms me a little bit.
Like it feels like I should have this excitement and there's this fresh start. And it kind of feels like this empty feeling sometimes to me of like, I want to be really motivated, but I also still am kind of like in relaxation mode. And then the first week of January is done, and I'm like, I didn't start anything.
I didn't do some big different thing. And now like, now what? So I kind of fall in that category. And so for that reason, I don't like to do big New Year's resolutions. I'm always trying to evaluate and address areas of my life that I'm wanting to change or, goals that I want to set. I don't feel like there needs to be a specific timeline to them.
But when I do identify something that I want to work on, I think about it big picture. And then I break it down into the smallest next step I can possibly, possibly think of. So, for example, if my goal was that I wanted to start getting to bed earlier. Maybe, um, you know, I've noticed, and this was something a couple years ago that I did work on, where I noticed that after my kids were going to bed, I was kind of doing that revenge sleep procrastination thing where I was like, this is my time, like, this is my time, nobody needs me, I'm gonna like sit and scroll on my phone and watch TV and like, I would just stay up so late because it, it felt like the only time I had to just chill.
And what was happening was then I was waking up tired and cranky and then it would mess up my day and my workout and the things for the next day. So I knew that I wasn't going to all of a sudden start going to bed hours and hours earlier. But what I tried to do was set some really small little goals for myself to change how I was handling that evening time.
So for example, I felt like the screen for me, the phone, the TV was part of the problem. So I tried to build in some new habits that were not screen related. So if I was going to stay up late, I wanted the last 20 or 30 minutes before I decided to go to bed to be off of my screen. So I started puzzling again, um, getting puzzles.
Now actually this year for my birthday, I got a puzzle board. And I am not ashamed to admit that because for me, I need to keep my hands busy and I like to think. And so in the evening, if I'm trying to not just like over consume technology, it's I like puzzling. So I started getting back into puzzling.
Sometimes I'll work on like my children's baby books or, I'm Like print out photos and work on little projects that I want to do. sometimes I'll sit down and read a book. And there's all sorts of things that you can do. But for me, I just wanted to find a way to shift my screen time so that I was not on screens until You know, stopping screens 30 minutes before I was trying to go to bed.
So that was the first shift I made, and honestly that took me a couple months to really get consistent with it. And then from there I was like, I'm still going to bed way too late. How do I start the process of starting to go to bed at a better hour? So from there I made other little adjustments until I felt like I was going to bed at a decent hour.
So that's just an example, but my point is, is that if I had just said, and I've done this before with other types of goals, okay, that's it, I'm staying up too late, and now every night for the next month, I'm going to be asleep by 9 o'clock, and I'm going to have no screen time, no TV time in the evening, I'm going to do all these things.
A weekend I would have been Like, ugh, I really want to stay up late tonight. That means I'm just going to throw my whole goal away and just throw the towel in and forget about it. And then I'd be kind of back where I was. Whereas now I've really improved my evening routine. I've made lasting change to my sleep.
I feel so much better, but it took me a while and it took me making little changes that weren't so intense and easy to kind of feel like I was backsliding on, to really see that progress over time. So that is my first strategy. If you are someone that you are finding, I have these big dreams and goals and hopes, or I want to make lasting change to my routine and I am not making progress, my first strategy to you is to just find the first step.
And then even break it down smaller. We use this analogy a lot with our clients of a marathon. And so if we think about our goal as like the finish line of the marathon, a lot of times we want to talk about like how fast we're running and what lap we're on and where we are, but I'm always like, hey, Before we worry about the finish line and the podium and what, you know, what place I am in the race, did you remember your shoes?
Did you tie them? Are you wearing the right outfit for this race? You know, like, let's go back to the start line and think about if we're actually prepared to run the race. And so, I think a lot of times when we start with these New Year's resolutions and we make these big changes, we're like, Starting halfway through the race, running, running, running, running, running, and if you start halfway through, you know, or start running the race and you didn't bring the right shoes, you didn't eat a good snack, you haven't been training for it, you're going to not finish the marathon, right?
And I don't know why I'm using that runner analogy right now as someone who's not a runner, but I think it's, the visual can be really helpful. And so, I encourage you, if you have a goal that you've been working toward for a long time, or maybe you did set some sweeping, big New Year's resolution and it's just not going well, I encourage you to revisit the whole concept.
Write the goal out, like, really long term for yourself. What do I want to look different for me in a year with this? Whether it's my sleep, or my eating, or my routine, or my social life, or whatever the goal is related to. What do I want things to look like in one year? And then backtrack. So from there, with this marathon analogy, what I like people to do is think of, like, what is mile one?
What does that first mile marker look like? So for me, with the sleep example, the first mile marker was a couple nights a week. I just didn't want to be on screens right before bed. That was mile one for me. And, and sometimes we set mile one and we even have to like cut that goal even more down so it's even smaller.
We want our mini goals ,along this marathon to be so easily attainable and achievable so you can focus on that next goal post. If you've ever run a race, and I did, I ran a 10 mile cherry blossom race with my husband and I, it was, it was brutal. I did train for it, but I, I know from that race that every time I knew I had hit the next mile marker, I might grab some water real quick or a snack, but it was so encouraging to me to then get to the next mile.
Whereas if I just was like focused on that 10 mile mark the whole time, I would not have made it. And I know that. So, um, that's the same thing with our goals. It lets break them up into manageable, attainable chunks. We need to have a clear vision of our end goal and stay focused on it. That's certainly a big part of reaching our goals, but we need to have manageable, clear next steps in order to make progress towards a goal.
So that's the first thing. If you're not seeing consistent, lasting change or progress towards a goal, that I would consider. Break that goal down into really manageable next step. The second thing I would ask you about is, are you prioritizing this in your life? And this is where I talk just briefly about burnout.
I'm not gonna get too much into it, but for me, what was happening when I was setting career goals for myself, or personal goals around my health, or um, sleep, or whatever it may be, It was important to me, I thought. It was important to me because I was thinking about it a lot and I kept talking about it and I wanted it to be important to me.
But the way I was spending my time did not indicate that it was actually important to me. And what I mean by that is, I was not prioritizing my time to ensure that these things were happening. So another example of, you know, a New Year's resolution that a lot of people have is they want to start eating better.
Maybe they want to get in more vegetables, uh, maybe they want to start eating, you know, more consistently with meals or increase their protein, or they have maybe specific health goals around their eating and wellness and, and exercise. Those are hard to sustain. And when life gets really busy, A lot of times, that's the first thing to go.
Maybe it's like, okay, the first couple weeks of January, I was like chopping all the veggies, I was making really healthy recipes, and then life kicked back in, I had to reshift my focus, and that was no longer a priority. And so, for that reason, and this isn't like a guilt thing, because this is true for myself too, I often will set up, when I'm working towards a goal, checkpoints for myself to check in and ask myself how I'm doing.
I like to do this once a month, but some people need to do this once a week. Just like a list of questions, I To say, okay, remember this is the vision, this is the goal, this is why I'm doing this. Because, by the way, the why behind the goal is the number one predictor of whether or not you're going to get there, right?
If someone else is kind of like pushing you to do it, or you feel like you have to do it, that's going to make it a lot more difficult to stay focused on the goal than if it's something you deeply, passionately want for yourself, you've understood, you've taken time to envision what it would look like if you reach this goal.
That is going to help, give you the momentum and the motivation to stick toward the goal. So I like to have checkpoints very often. Some clients really need to do this once a week. Where you come up with three or four questions for yourself and you say, What, what is my why? Why am I doing this? Right?
It's a pain in the butt. I'm spending more on groceries. I have to set aside this time. But kind of like a recheck. Why am I doing this? How is it going? What are the things that are preventing me from being successful this week? And how can I regroup? Right? You can pick your own questions, but something along those lines where you have some accountability to yourself of how things are going.
Because, as I mentioned, our natural tendency, especially when we're first making change, is to revert back to what we're used to and what we're comfortable with, even if it's not benefiting us, right? So we're busy people. It is easy to overload our schedules and Therefore, when we're trying to make a change that is time consuming or, um, requires us to shift how we've spent our time, very often that the reason that we're not continuing on that journey is because we no longer are prioritizing that.
So I, I would encourage you that if you have already started to kind of fall off the wayside of one of your goals and it's something that you know in a year from now you want to have improved, to set up a weekly checkpoint with yourself. Identify some questions that are going to help you stay accountable and really evaluate your calendar and your schedule.
We all have the same amount of hours in the week, and we all have the ability to simplify, say no to things, regroup where we're spending our time. I do recognize that everybody has different responsibilities, different support networks, different things that are tugging on their time. But I encourage you to really look and see.
Where your free time and your extra time is going, and if it's possible for you to carve out one or two hours a week toward that goal that you haven't been. So, really looking at simplifying, and that was one of my, big goals last year. I like to, like, kind of pick a word or a theme for the year, and my goal last year was just to simplify, because I found for myself that, like, I would, Just get so excited about something, or like, feel like I was making progress towards something, and then I would overcomplicate it.
A lot of times, the reason my schedule is so overwhelming, or I'm so stressed out, is because I am personally adding things to my list that I feel I need to do to make things go a certain way. Anyways, maybe that resonates, or maybe it doesn't, but Um, I just wanted to simplify. I wanted to simplify my schedule.
I wanted to simplify the pressure I was putting on myself and the expectations. I wanted to simplify my house and the stuff that was in it. I wanted to simplify the extracurricular stuff the kids were doing. You know, I just wanted to simplify. And, that was really empowering. I haven't really fully locked in on a word yet for this year, honestly, because I think I'm still wanting to just Be in that simplify space and, continue like honing in on that and also feel energized.
That's something that I really want this year. Anyways, all of that to say that for me, I constantly, constantly am having to hold myself accountable for where I'm spending my time. And I kind of alluded to that with like, I think sometimes a big time suck for people is technology and TV and their phones and things like that.
But there's also things that I, I waste time on, I'm not as productive with. And so could I be being more intentional about setting aside time for specific goals of mine? Yes. And that's why I try to regularly check in, evaluate my calendar, and make sure that I'm making intentional blocked off time toward my goals.
So for you, for example, if you were working on that healthy eating goal. Maybe it's as simple as one hour a week on Sunday or Monday that you are blocking off to sit down, research recipes, plan things out, order that grocery order, or whatever that looks like, but really being intentional that you are prioritizing that time, looking at your calendar, what things might need to go.
If I'm that busy and overwhelmed that I can't prioritize a goal that is so important to me, then where do I need to streamline my time in order to. make that more of a priority. So that is my second thing. So the first thing is we want to break our goals down so they're so manageable, kind of move that goal post closer so that we can actually sustain focus and attention and achieve the goal in mini chunks.
So that's going to give us momentum. The second thing is to look at what we're prioritizing in our and really look at our calendar to make sure that we are setting aside time to make this goal happen. We can always put things off, but if you want in a year to see major progress toward the goal of yours, then it's going to be what you do every single day in little, little increments that's going to add up to the sum of big progress and change.
So don't ever tell yourself that the little things that you do each day don't end up mattering, because they do. And that constant checkpoint with yourself of how am I doing? Okay, I had a backslide this week or this week wasn't. I didn't prioritize time towards this goal. I need a regroup. Those little adjustments throughout the month or the year are going to end up being so impactful for you long term.
And then the third thing I would say is in terms of if you're really finding yourself struggling, not being consistent, not really making the progress that you want to see toward a goal, is to really look at the accountability piece. And I know this feels really cliche and it's honestly the part I struggle with a lot because sometimes I'm nervous to tell other people my goals because When I do, I feel, I just feel such a sense of being accountable to that person and I kind of sometimes prefer like, okay, well that didn't work out.
That goal was a big bust and now no one knows about it. But if it's something that you've tried on your own and you're not having success with over and over again, then I would really encourage you to find somebody or a group or a system that is going to help you feel accountable. So for example, a lot of people use this example, like if you are.
Wanting to be more consistent with the gym. For some people, working with a trainer or paying for classes and signing up or agreeing to show up tomorrow morning to a class with your friend. Those types of things are going to give you a little bit more urgency and accountability than if you just kind of tell yourself, Oh, I'm going to go to the gym tomorrow, right?
Or having checkpoints and having a friend or a coach or a partner or somebody in your life that is checking in with you to ensure that you're making progress, helping hold you accountable is going to make a big difference. I just can't, I feel like people aren't always so interested in the accountability piece.
It doesn't always have to be a person. You can kind of hold yourself financially accountable for goals by, signing up for things, you can, use technology to track progress on goals. I mean, there's a lot of ways to kind of keep yourself accountable and incentivize towards a goal, but it's definitely something you should consider.
If you keep ending up at the same result all the time, that might be an area where you are not, getting as much support or accountability as you need. And that could be the difference maker for you in making lasting change. So all of that to say, maybe none of this was like brand new information for you, but at a minimum, I would just encourage you to really sit down, think about your why.
What are the things that I'm really wanting to work on? Why am I wanting to make these changes? What areas of my life am I not feeling thrilled about? Whether it's my health or my social life or my professional life, where do I want to see change? And then really map it out, like a marathon, right?
What's the big end goal? Me on the podium with the gold medal. And then how do I break that down into micro, micro steps that I can sustain in shorter windows? From there, I've got to look at my calendar. I've got to have a reality check with myself. Where am I spending my time? What am I prioritizing? And how do I make sure that my schedule communicates?
To me and to others, that this is a priority to me. I need to ensure that I'm blocking off time. And if I'm still not finding success, then I need to also look for some accountability measures that are going to help me stay focused because it's not always going to be like motivation that's going to carry me through towards a goal.
It's going to be the consistency and the dedication and the habits that I form that I just do no matter what. So I hope you found this helpful. I mean, I think You may have heard in other podcasts, I talk about something called our non negotiables, and that's kind of what I want to close on today. If you don't even know where to start with a change, and maybe one of your goals is just like, I just want a new routine.
I don't have a routine. I don't manage my time well. I just want a routine. Start small. I always encourage people to pick their two or three non negotiables every single day that they always do no matter what, even if they're not feeling well, even if they're on vacation. What are two or three things that you do every day consistently?
From there, you can build your dream routine, your dream schedule, your dream game plan. And maybe those things you can start adding on and building, but no matter what, even on your lowest days, what are two or three things that you do every day to communicate to yourself that you are being consistent in that area?
So, whether, like, maybe you have a fitness goal, and your ideal would be that you get to the gym for a really good workout three or four days a week. That's not going to necessarily happen every week for you, maybe. But maybe your non negotiable is that every day you get outside for ten minutes and move.
Or maybe you're a non negotiable that every day you do something that gets your heart rate up a little bit. Finding those non negotiables, sticking to them, and then expanding on them is kind of what I'm talking about with that marathon, right? Like, I, I can do this little thing consistently, so I'm going to keep doing it.
Okay, now I've got success. I've ingrained it as a habit. Let me build onto it. Let me improve upon it. It doesn't always have to be this big, sweeping, overwhelming change. You can do these things in little increments. And then you will start to see that the big change starts coming. So I hope that you found this helpful.
As always, if this is something that is really challenging for you and you would like to brainstorm, we would love to help you. We have a fabulous group program running this winter and spring for our adult clients that we go over these exact things, helping you set goals that are realistic. And achievable, and then help giving you the framework and the systems you need to achieve them.
We also offer individual coaching. We would love to support you. So, if you found this helpful at all, please share it with a friend who you think might also enjoy it. And we hope your year is off to a great start.
That's all for today. Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Life Solved Podcast. If you are looking for more strategies and support to help you or a loved one navigate executive function challenges, we would love to hear from you. Schedule a free discovery call with one of our expert coaches today or learn more about our coaching programs by visiting our website at www. lifesolvedcoaching. com. See you next time.