About 4 years ago, when I was in the middle of my PhD research, I ran an interview based study. The purpose of the study was to try a motivational interviewing technique that would uncover what people were actually doing before bed.
The idea to use this interviewing technique was relatively straightforward: behaviours that are driven by habit exist below our level of conscious awareness. So, therein lies a problem: if people don’t always realise what they’re doing in the moment, how can they tell us about it? A survey - psychology’s favourite tool! - wouldn’t really cut it. How can we find out what people are actually doing?
We used this interviewing technique to help people walk step-by-step through their evenings. (The results of this study were published in the British Journal of Health Psychology). One thing I discovered in this study that, in a good way, surprised me:
People procrastinated their bedtime for more reasons than I expected.
I thought people would procrastinate mostly for me-time, but the responses were varied. Some people were just on auto-pilot. They didn’t really choose to procrastinate, they just kept going. Others were really avoiding going to bed because they had trouble falling asleep. There were different types of bedtime procrastination.
So now, many years later (when I’ve finally had a spare moment?!), I’ve developed a bedtime procrastination type quiz.
You’ll answer six questions and find out your dominant bedtime procrastination type (it’s probably common to identify with more than one, I’m running with the theory that most people have a dominant type).
And one more thing came out of this study, that I very much didn’t expect.
Towards the end, I mentioned to the participants that we were trying to figure out some ways to help them reduce their procrastination (if that was a goal they had). I mentioned this so people could tell me what their ideal program would look like.
Multiple participants asked me: “Oh, could I buy this from you? Are you running a course?”*
This is a sentiment echoed in DMs and messages. So, first of all, I’m running a Bedtime Procrastination Masterclass. It’s a 60-minute deep dive the science of why you stay up late. The masterclass is for you if you’re curious about the research and what the studies actually show. If you find ‘sleep better’ tips underwhelming. Or if you regularly intend to go to bed earlier, but… just don’t.
(If you’re interested in less, I’ve also just published a Sleep Habits Guide. And watch this space for a course later this year).
Why am I excited about this?
Because it feels good to have developed something you asked for, informed by research. I really feel like it’s putting my PhD work to good use (rather than gathering dust on a shelf). And in a world of saturated creator courses, these offerings have been informed by research (and guided by your wants and needs).
Thank you so much for being here, and supporting me along the way.
And I hope to see you in the Masterclass next week.
Sleep well,
Vanessa
*(And because of research ethics, I have literally no way to contact these people, so I very much hope you’re reading this post)
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