It's 11pm.
You want to get up at 6.30am to get to the gym before work. You know you should be getting around 8 hours of sleep (so 7.5 will have to do).
You jump into bed, snuggle down...you'll just have a quick check of Facebook. And Instagram. Oh but hang on, you really want to decorate your bedroom so there might be some nice stuff on Pinterest. What's that work email that just came in - crikey you'd totally forgotten that deadline was tomorrow. Before you know it, it's nearly 1am and you're wide awake. And you have to be up in just over 5 hours. #Help.
Bedtime procrastination is a real thing and you've probably got FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) to blame. Yep both Bedtime procrastination and FOMO are real 21st century problems and studies have found that there's a common link in both scenarios: social media. Yep, in our communications obsessed world, some of us find ourselves glued to our phone or laptops hitting the refresh button in the hope that we don't miss out on something really exciting (when the reality is that all you're probably missing out on is another cat video).
It's time to put the phone down - the study carried out by Dutch researchers found bedroom procrastination to be an important factor relating to getting insufficient sleep and as a consequence, decreased individual well-being. Since lack of sleep has also been linked to a host of horrible things such as depression, obesity, lack of sex drive and health problems, to name a few, it's probably not worth the extra time on Instagram (let's face it - a feed full of another photo of a smashed avocado, a christmas tree and a post workout selfie isn't exactly going to change your life).
So what can you do? If you think you can handle going cold turkey then our CEO has a "no shoes, no news" policy in his bedroom - buy a cheap alarm clock and leave your phone at the door!
For a less extreme approach make a concious effort to check social media at least an hour before you hit the deck - that way you'll feel relaxed and ready to slip into a sweet slumber!
