“Bàofùxìng áoyè’” is a Chinese phrase that the Western world has recently adopted to represent the overwhelmingly common phenomenon of “revenge bedtime procrastination.” That feeling when you’ve come back from an arduous day of work, yet instead of sleeping, you steal an extra hour or two on your phone is exactly the type of situation this phrase aspires to describe. 

Lu-Hai Liang’s article on BBC News explains how this idea first sprang up in China, where the “996 schedule,” in which one works from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. six days a week, is popularized. According to a national survey, 60% of people born after 1990 do not get enough sleep, which is supplemented by the 2019 Phillips Global Sleep Survey, which found from 12 countries that the average amount of sleep a working adult gets daily is a staggering 6.8 hours. 

Yet many refuse to remedy this and continue to delay sleep “in an effort to assert some kind of control” over their time, according to Maria Godoy in an NPR article. According to the Sleep Foundation, there are three factors that identify this oppressive behavior: a delay and subsequent decrease in sleep time, the lack of reason to stay up longer than necessary, and the acknowledgment that participating in this behavior will lead to “negative consequences.” Despite these alarming patterns, many view this as the most valuable time of their day, in which they can indulge in their hobbies and lives without the management of employers. 

However, an article from Stanford Student Affairs brings up the more dangerous side of this, as “this ‘revenge’ or desire to make up for lost free time only hurts yourself and continues the cycle of business and exhaustion.” While you are relishing in that extra scrolling time or binging that show on your to-do list, you are ignoring the gaping exhaustion you will be feeling the next morning. This renders you inefficient the following day, as you struggle to keep up with the already busy lifestyle that led you to this behavior in the first place. Thus, a downward spiral that must be controlled should it get too prolific in your life. 

Not only does this affect the quality of your work, but it also “degrades thinking, memory, and decision-making,” as emphasized by the Sleep Foundation. Several studies have proven that sleep deprivation is correlated with an inability to regulate emotions and a greater susceptibility to "cardiovascular problems and metabolic disorders, like diabetes.” Even Alzheimer’s disease has been linked to sleep deprivation, according to Lauren Whitehurst, a professor at the University of Kentucky. 

Rather than trying to make up all your lost hours of leisure in one go, pulmonary specialist Dr. Dasgupta of the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine recommends that you mindfully and tastefully limit your indulgences, as lost sleep is too detrimental and not worth the sacrifice in the long run. 

Another suggestion is bringing back those bedtime routines parents often enforce on their kids. While it may be a lost art now, they are quite effective in conditioning one’s body to sleep at an allotted time. Whether it be through a consistent bedtime, soothing bedroom environment, or controlled leisure, ultimately, ‘healthy sleep hygiene’ must be preserved to obtain the quality rest you deserve after a long day's work. And while you deserve that moment of indulgence and respite, it is safe to say that the negative consequences oftentimes outweigh the positive, since overindulgence can even end up as a degradation of one’s mental and physical well-being. Therefore, next time you feel that pull, listen to it with control, and start fresh each morning.