The Last Word On Nothing

Yesterday at 8:23am, my husband texted me a link. No note, just a string of random letters and slashes and dots. I clicked and landed on a research article titled “Why don’t you go to bed on time?”

The manuscript begins like this: “Most people do not get enough sleep on work days despite sleep’s importance for well-being, performance, and health. A phenomenon held responsible for promoting insufficient sleep on work days is bedtime procrastination. Bedtime procrastination is defined as ‘going to bed later than intended, without having external reasons for doing so’, that is, ‘people just fail to [go to bed].’”

Ah, bedtime procrastination. I had never heard the term before, but I am intimately familiar with the concept of failing to go to bed. If bedtime procrastination had a poster, I would be that poster’s child. My husband, on the other hand, does not procrastinate. He is a bedtime anticipator. A bedtime enthusiast. A bedtime yearner. He would go to bed right now if you let him.

The texted link was clearly the latest passive aggressive salvo in our years-long battle to define an appropriate bedtime. Me: 12-1am. Him: 9:30pm or, better yet, immediately.

According to the prevailing scientific theory, procrastination—of any task—can be explained as a failure to self regulate. That is, I want to go to bed at 10pm. I know I should go to bed at 10pm. I know staying up will cause next-day exhaustion and general grumpiness. But I still cannot manage to get my head on the pillow. Instead I stay up watching TV and eating ice cream. I give into delicious temptation.

The authors of this new paper, however, argue that bedtime procrastination might be driven instead by an individual’s circadian rhythms. In other words, I procrastinate going to bed because I am naturally an evening person (what chronobiologists like to call an “owl”), not necessarily because I am momentarily reckless and impulsive.

The researchers didn’t find overwhelming evidence to support this idea. In fact, their results were decidedly mixed. But neither explanation feels very satisfying to me. It’s true I’m a night owl. And, yes, I am not great at resisting temptation. But there’s another factor the authors didn’t even mention: parenthood.

I have a two-and-a-half-year old who goes to bed at 8pm on a good night. She wakes between 6am and 7am. If I want to ensure eight hours of shuteye, I need to be asleep by 10pm. That gives me two hours of free time each evening. But not really. Because I need at least 30 minutes to get ready for bed and to fall asleep. So I’m down to an hour and a half.

Here is what I can do in an hour and a half:

1. Eat a piece of chocolate while sorting through the Subaru dealership coupons stuck to the fridge.
2. Pick up 27 Magna-tiles, 13 puzzle pieces, 11 paper coins, three stuffed dog toys, two pairs of underwear, one pile of smashed purple Play-doh, and a pretend sippy cup of pretend orange juice.
3. Contemplate reorganizing the living room.
4. Research possible Ikea solutions for living room reorganization.
5. Liberate a giant bouncy ball from under the couch.
6. Vacuum the living room really well (even under the couch).
7. Pour a glass of wine.
8. Fold the laundry while watching the tail end of some stupid cop or doctor show (is network TV composed entirely of cop and doctor shows?).

That’s it. That’s all I can do. And I have to really hustle. 10pm rolls around and the wine is not drunk. The laundry is not put away. And the vacuum is still lying in the middle of the living room rug.

I have not read a single word of my novel. I have not found an Ikea solution to my living room chaos. I have not pondered any mysteries or had Deep Thoughts or eaten a second piece of chocolate. I have not made popcorn. I have not done anything satisfying at all (except getting the bouncy ball unstuck). A 10pm bedtime doesn’t even allow me to watch the 10 o’clock news. I have to go to bed without knowing tomorrow’s weather. Like an animal.

And so the clock strikes 10 and I think “No!” or sometimes “NO!” I #resist. I stage a one-woman rebellion. I watch the local news and comment on its inanity. I finish my wine. I read a chapter of my book. I watch a highly acclaimed show of my choosing from start to finish. I live, goddammit! I live like no one is watching.

Usually no one is, because by then it’s 11:45pm. My husband (the Man) has been in bed for hours.

He used to try to cajole me into bed earlier by saying things like, “we should really try to get a good night’s sleep.” Or “we should go to bed really early tonight.” But that only added fuel to my bonfire of bedtime resistance. “You go to bed, old man!” I’d yell. And now he does.

Before I had a child, I could spend my entire evening eating chocolates and sorting Subaru coupons. Now my free time is condensed into that hour and a half between my toddler’s bedtime and my own theoretical one. By procrastinating bedtime, I am reclaiming my time. That reclaimed time is precious. More precious even than sleep.

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Image courtesy of Lynn Friedman via Flickr