Revenge Bedtime Test (BPS)

The Bedtime Procrastination Scale (BPS) was introduced in 2014 by health psychology researchers Floor Kroese, Denise De Ridder, Catharine Evers, and Marieke Adriaanse at Utrecht University. While behavioral scientists had long investigated procrastination in academic, financial, and workplace settings, this research team recognized that self-regulation failures also frequently manifest in essential daily health behaviors. Specifically, they sought to conceptualize and measure why millions of people routinely fail to go to bed at their planned hour, even when no external circumstances, emergency tasks, or unavoidable work obligations prevent them from resting.

Bedtime procrastination—often popularized in contemporary culture as revenge bedtime procrastination—is formally defined as the voluntary delay of going to bed in the absence of external constraints, despite knowing that this postponement will lead to negative outcomes such as severe morning fatigue, brain fog, and diminished daytime functioning. In everyday life, this pattern rarely stems from a genuine desire to stay awake; rather, individuals generally plan to get adequate sleep but struggle to disengage from rewarding late-night activities. Leisure pursuits, streaming shows, reading, social media feeds, and immersive mobile gaming frequently hijack bedtime routines, converting a planned restful night into hours of unintended delay.

Psychological research indicates that bedtime procrastination is primarily an issue of behavioral self-regulation rather than an innate sleep pathology or circadian mismatch. Throughout a typical day, individuals expend considerable cognitive and emotional energy navigating professional duties, personal obligations, and stressful social expectations. By the time late evening arrives, self-control reserves are frequently depleted, making it substantially harder to resist appealing digital distractions or actively initiate the preparatory steps required to turn off the lights. For many individuals, delaying sleep becomes an almost retaliatory effort to reclaim private leisure time and personal autonomy that felt entirely absent during a heavily scheduled day.

Studies utilizing the BPS across diverse international samples have consistently linked elevated bedtime procrastination to shorter overall sleep duration, impaired subjective sleep quality, and heightened daytime drowsiness. Over time, persistent postponement of sleep contributes to accumulated sleep debt, which negatively affects emotional resilience, executive functioning, workplace productivity, and general physical well-being. Crucially, empirical research highlights that bedtime procrastinators do not dislike sleeping; in fact, they frequently express a desire to sleep more, underscoring a persistent gap between their healthy sleep intentions and their actual nighttime actions.

Your results illustrate your placement along a single continuum of bedtime procrastination, reflecting how frequently you delay your bedtime and how readily you manage nighttime routines. Please note that any population comparison markers displayed on your chart are descriptive statistical estimates derived from published research samples, rather than validated clinical percentiles or universal demographic norms. These markers are included solely to help contextualize your self-reported tendencies within broader academic observations, rather than to establish an absolute ranking or diagnostic benchmark.

This assessment is provided strictly for educational and personal informational purposes and is not intended to serve as a medical diagnosis, psychological evaluation, or substitute for professional healthcare advice. If chronic fatigue, severe insomnia, or persistent exhaustion is interfering with your health, well-being, or daily life, consulting a qualified physician or certified sleep specialist is strongly advised. This test is based on the published Bedtime Procrastination Scale (BPS) and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the instrument's original authors or their affiliated academic institutions.

References

• Kroese, F. M., De Ridder, D. T. D., Evers, C., & Adriaanse, M. A. (2014). Bedtime procrastination: introducing a new area of procrastination. Frontiers in Psychology, 5.