ARE you guilty of watching movies on Foxtel until the wee hours, when you planned to get an early night?
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Or perhaps midnight eBay cruising or romance reading is more your thing?
Whatever your late-night vice, sleep scientists have given this time-wasting a name – bedtime procrastination – and it seems the habit is not doing your brain or your mood any favours.
In modern life there is this unfortunate tendency to stay up late, hooked into a TV show or some other night-time activity, long after you should have gone to bed.
We’re all guilty of it, but what many don’t realise is this habit of putting off sleep until later for no real reason is seriously impacting on the days that follow.
The so-called daylight saving “spring forward” clock change robs people of an hour’s sleep that night, but studies show the impact of this seemingly small one-hour shift in the sleep cycle can affect sleep for up to a week.
Recent research from Liverpool’s John Moores College in Britain suggests the bi-annual event is even harder to adjust to if you routinely delay going to bed at night.
Studies show that practising good sleep hygiene ahead of the daylight saving change can make the adjustment much easier to handle, and conversely those who don’t are likely to pay the price for weeks afterwards.
Lucy Williams
Australian Sleep Health Foundation