Revenge bedtime procrastinating. That term originated in China, where it’s known as 報復性熬夜, and can alternately be translated as “retaliatory staying up late.” The BBC’s Lu-Hai Liang wrote an excellent article tracing how the term spread in China, partially sparked by a viral tweet by journalist Daphne K. Lee.
As Liang explains: "In China, a national survey in 2018 showed that 60% of people born after 1990 were not getting enough sleep, and that those living in the biggest cities suffered the most. The tech companies who created 996 culture tend to be based in big cities, and their work practices have influenced other sectors. A recent report by state broadcaster CCTV and the National Bureau of Statistics said the average Chinese employee only had 2.42 hours per day when they were not at work or asleep, down by 25 minutes from the previous year."
The “996 Culture” invoked above — when employees work from 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week — is endemic in many of China’s large cities. But the phenomenon of revenge bedtime procrastination is not, of course, limited to China. It’s a symptom of workism and the burnout that accompanies it, which means you can find it anywhere where that approach to a career has been normalized. It’s illogical and annoying and only makes things worse. But it’s also what our souls do when we refuse to nourish them. They sabotage our most perfect intentions for sleep, because sleep is not the same as leisure. Don’t get me wrong; sleep is great. It can be deeply restorative. But it also requires us to be, well, unconscious.
Continue reading here : https://annehelen.substack.com/p/revenge-bedtime-procrastination
