New research suggests emotional health may be a key intervention target for patients who habitually delay sleep, independent of chronotype.
Key takeaways:
- Bedtime procrastination is associated with higher neuroticism and lower conscientiousness and extraversion, even after adjusting for chronotype.
- Contrary to some beliefs, individuals who delay bedtime are less likely to seek exciting activities and more likely to report emotional experiences consistent with depression.
- The findings suggest that difficulty managing negative affect and anxiety before bed, rather than just poor time management, may drive the behavior.
- Emotional health is identified as a potential target for interventions to address bedtime procrastination and its impact on sleep health.
Bedtime procrastination in young adults is associated with specific personality traits and depressive tendencies, according to a study presented at SLEEP 2025.
The results show that delaying bedtime was linked to higher neuroticism and lower conscientiousness and extraversion. These associations remained significant after researchers statistically adjusted for chronotype. The findings suggest the behavior is driven more by emotional states than by a search for enjoyable activities.
“Our study demonstrated that individuals who habitually procrastinate their bedtime were actually less likely to report seeking out exciting, engaging, or enjoyable activities,” says lead author Steven Carlson, a doctoral candidate in the psychology department at University of Utah in Salt Lake City, in a release. “Instead, bedtime procrastinators reported having emotional experiences consistent with depression, specifically endorsing a tendency toward experiencing negative emotions and lacking positive emotional experiences.”
The study included 390 young adults with an average age of 24 years. Participants completed a chronotype questionnaire, a personality trait assessment (neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness), and a 14-day sleep diary to measure bedtime procrastination.
Bedtime procrastination, defined as the tendency to delay sleep without external obligations, reduces the opportunity for sufficient sleep. According to the researchers, the study indicates that emotional health could be a target for clinical interventions aimed at addressing this common problem.
“Bedtime procrastination is not only associated with poor planning, low self-discipline, and time management problems, but also potentially due to difficulties managing negative affect and anxiety prior to bed,” Carlson says. “Given the ubiquity of this behavior, and its impact on sleep health, we hope to extend this research to determine whether reducing negative emotions prior to bedtime can be an effective treatment for bedtime procrastination.”
