My sleeping habits have been whacked ever since I was little. Sadly, I still carry this with me until now. It's debilitating. Studies show that sleep likes consistency. You train your body to sleep and wake up at a time you would like it to. Seems easy. I tried it and it works, but I just cannot keep myself consistent with sleeping and waking at the same hour every single day.
I remember when I was in Australia doing my master's, I had the experience of sleeping at five, 6AM, and then waking up after lunch. Here in the US while doing my PhD, it's the same shit. However, here I medicated for my sleep. But then I do not like the effects of sleep aids/prescription medicine on me. Some drugs are inconsistent with their time releases and half-life. It doesn't kick in at the same time all the time, and some leave me feeling groggy the next day.
Lately I've been assessing my habits prior to sleeping. I noticed there are a number of things I must do before I allow myself to sleep. Flossing, brushing teeth, skincare (i.e. cleansing, gua sha, tretinoin), and trying to tick off the tasks in my to-do list. If These things don't get done, I can't sleep. Now the problem arises if there's a big task I need to do, like an assignment that takes me so long to finish. It's difficult for me to let go of it. I feel the need to finish it before I can sleep, even if the deadline is days away. Is procrastination associated with acute/chronic insomnia??? And because I'm a public health student, I looked up a paper that discusses this. And apparently someone is also curious about this. Here's the abstract of the paper:
Procrastination is a widespread habit that has been understudied in the realm of health behaviors, especially sleep. This study aimed to examine the cross-sectional relationships between procrastination and multiple dimensions of sleep in a large national sample of US adolescents and young adults. A random sample of 8742 students from 11 US universities provided self-reports of procrastination (measured by the General Procrastination Scale-Short Form with scores ranging from 1 to 5) and sleep behaviors including social jetlag (the absolute difference between mid-sleep times on weeknights and weekend nights), sleep duration (mean weekly, weeknight, and weekend night), insomnia symptoms (trouble falling/staying asleep), daytime sleepiness, and sleep medication use. Multiple linear regression and Poisson regression models adjusted for socio-demographic and academic characteristics as well as response propensity weights. Higher levels of procrastination were significantly associated with greater social jetlag (β = 3.34 min per unit increase in the procrastination score; 95% CI [1.86, 4.81]), shorter mean weekly sleep duration (β = −4.44 min; 95% CI [-6.36, −2.52]), and shorter weeknight sleep duration (β = −6.10 min; 95% CI [-8.37, −3.84]), but not weekend night sleep duration. Moreover, procrastination was associated with insomnia symptoms (Relative Risk (RR) = 1.27; 95% CI [1.19, 1.37]) and daytime sleepiness (RR = 1.32; 95% CI [1.27, 1.38]), but not sleep medication use. The results were robust to adjustment for anxiety and depressive symptoms. Procrastination was associated with greater social jetlag, shorter sleep duration, and worse sleep quality. If causal, the results suggest that interventions to prevent and manage procrastination might help students to improve their sleep health.
Citation: Li X, Buxton OM, Kim Y, Haneuse S, Kawachi I. Do procrastinators get worse sleep? Cross-sectional study of US adolescents and young adults. SSM Popul Health. 2019 Nov 16;10:100518. doi: 10.1016/j.ssmph.2019.100518. PMID: 31799365; PMCID: PMC6881694.
Bottom line is, YES, PROCRASTINATION IS ASSOCIATED WITH SYMPTOMS OF INSOMNIA. If you procrastinate, you are most likely to have shorter sleep duration and worse sleep quality. On a side note, I actually understood the paper and all its biostatistical and epidemiological jargon. Oh wow okay so I really learned biostatistics and public health here in the US. :)
I don't know what social jetlag is but it was mentioned in the study. So I searched for this again in Google (I could've just used chatGPT but I like parsing info on Google) and came across a paper that reviews social jetlag and human health risks. Here's the abstract:
The term social jetlag is used to describe the discrepancy between biological time, determined by our internal body clock, and social times, mainly dictated by social obligations such as school or work. In industrialized countries, two-thirds of the studying/working population experiences social jetlag, often for several years. Described for the first time in 2006, a considerable effort has been put into understanding the effects of social jetlag on human physiopathology, yet our understanding of this phenomenon is still very limited. Due to its high prevalence, social jetlag is becoming a primary concern for public health. This review summarizes current knowledge regarding social jetlag, social jetlag associated behavior (e.g., unhealthy eating patterns) and related risks for human health.
Citation: Caliandro R, Streng AA, van Kerkhof LWM, van der Horst GTJ, Chaves I. Social Jetlag and Related Risks for Human Health: A Timely Review. Nutrients. 2021 Dec 18;13(12):4543. doi: 10.3390/nu13124543. PMID: 34960096; PMCID: PMC8707256.
So apparently this concept of social jetlag (SJL) was only described in 2006, the year I graduated college. There's a section in the paper that discusses the adverse health effects of social jetlag, and one of them is impaired sleep and cognitive performance. A few excerpts from this section of the paper:
SJL are also characterized by short sleep duration and low sleep quality
SJL seems to be correlated with a lower quality of sleep
people who experience SJL are often sleep-deprived
From this quick search and skim, studies show that procrastination is associated with insomnia symptoms, low sleep quality, and shorter sleep time. These three things are also associated with social jetlag. Procrastination and social jetlag. These are two things I should look out for.
Next thing to discuss is how do I short circuit these two concepts. Hmmm.
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