Insomnia linked with procrastination

Procrastinators, beware! People who tend to put things off may be at a higher risk of having insomnia, a new study has warned.

Researchers studied 598 people and found that procrastinators also had more problems sleeping than those who did not put things off.

“At bedtime, people who procrastinate are ruminating about the things they need to do and have not done, and that makes it difficult to go to sleep,” said Ilana S. Hairston from Academic College of Tel Aviv in Israel.

This is the first study that shows a relationship between insomnia and procrastination, said Hairston.

The participants completed online questionnaires that studied their tendencies to procrastinate, and also their sleep problems and emotional states, Live Science reported. The questionnaires also examined whether the people were morning or evening types, meaning whether they tended to go to bed early and get up early, or go to bed late and get up late.

The study showed that morning people had lower levels of procrastination and fewer sleep problems, compared with the evening people. Among evening types, those who had higher levels of procrastination also had more sleep problems, the researchers said.