How to Enjoy Downtime Without Procrastinating Sleep
With your busy and hectic life, you probably relish your evening downtime.
Perhaps you stretch it out so long that you glance at the clock and realize with a little burst of panic that it's quite late. Perhaps this happens night after night.
It's called bedtime procrastination.
If evening is your only downtime, that pattern is understandable. However, there are some unintended consequences to this. And other options you might consider.
The least valuable part of your thinking day is beyond 16 hours of awake time.
Once you have been awake for 16 hours, the effectiveness of the brain starts to steeply decline. You may drift into watching TV or Netflix, but what value is that to you? You are just coasting along and avoiding sleep.
Sleep procrastination sets up a vicious cycle.
When you avoid the time you naturally feel sleepy, the mind pushes into a "second wind" and feels alert again for an hour or two. Once you catch the next wave of sleepiness, you will have lost valuable sleep time, only to be awoken too early to start the next day. When you do this regularly, you are in danger of chronic sleep deprivation.
You short-change deep sleep.
The earliest 90-minute sleep cycle of the night is when you get the biggest dose of essential deep sleep. During deep sleep, you are consolidating learning and memory for the next day. Thinking, productivity and effectiveness will become that much harder if you miss this sleep cycle.
An alternative
Instead of procrastinating sleep at night, give yourself stretches of quality downtime spread throughout the day.
Find times you can truly savor and appreciate your life. Even with a busy schedule, you could consider stepping out for a walk, enjoying a commute with something you want to listen to, or taking a moment to call a friend.
It may take some creative reflection to find those times, but it's worth it.
And you'll be getting better sleep.