Why Some People Find It Harder To Drag Themselves To Bed At Night

By Emily Reynolds You’re exhausted. You’ve had a long day at work before coming home to make dinner, do some chores and relax, and now it’s time for bed. But for some reason — despite the fact you’ve been struggling to stay awake all day — you can’t quite bring yourself to stop what you’re doing and go to sleep. If this sounds familiar, you’ll be pleased to hear that you’re not the only one who lacks willpower when it’s time to go to bed. It’s so widespread, in fact, that Katharina Bernecker from the Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien and Veronika Job at the Technical University of Dresden have investigated what could be driving the phenomenon in a new paper published in the British Journal of Psychology. Bernecker and Job believed that our failure to drag ourselves to bed at night is a failure of self-control: for some reason, we can’t muster the willpower needed to do what we need to do. Furthermore, they posited that our beliefs about our own willpower may predict how long we spend procrastinating before bed. The team issued questionnaires to 173 college-age participants. First, participants were asked to agree or disagree with a number of statements, each reflecting one of two theories of willpower. Those who believe in the “limited” theory see willpower as a finite resource: once you’ve used it up, it’s gone until it is replenished by relaxation or sleep. Proponents of the “non-limited” theory, on the other hand, believe willpower ...
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Cognition Decision making Sleep and dreaming Source Type: blogs