EndXA

I agree that this usually isn’t easy to accomplish, especially if bedtime procrastination is a serious issue for you. However, if you do decide to try and tackle this problem, this approach (identifying why you procrastinate and then tailoring a personal solution) is the way to go.

For example:

* If you can’t stop browsing social media before going to sleep, install an extension that cuts your access after a certain hour.

* If you feel too energetic to sleep, reduce caffeine intake/blue light exposure in the hours before bedtime.

* If you don’t feel motivated enough to go to sleep, use motivational techniques such as marking down streaks of days on which you successfully go to sleep on time.

Again, I'm not saying that it's easy, but if you’re willing to put in some effort, there are a lot of effective techniques you can use: https://solvingprocrastination.com/how-to-stop-procrastinati...

I partially agree with what you’re saying.

What I agree with: actively overcoming your procrastination has more to do with dealing with the obstacles that cause you to procrastinate in the first place. For example, if you’re procrastinating because of your anxiety, dealing with your anxiety is generally going to be a much more effective approach than trying to increase your self-control.

What I disagree with: self-control is without a doubt one of the psychological mechanisms that play a role in our procrastination. That doesn’t mean that we should focus on it when we’re trying to help people stop procrastinating, but it does mean that it's important to understand the role that it plays.

If you look at the research papers that this article mentions, this is something that the researchers themselves are saying. For instance, in the first paper, Sirois and Pychyl say that: “if we have a great deal of self-discipline and dutifulness, commonly associated with the Big Five trait of Conscientiousness… we may exert the self-control necessary to engage in the task in a timely manner despite the lack of immediate reward or the negative mood that the task elicits.”

As such, while I think it’s reasonable for the article to conclude that when it comes to dealing with procrastination, your focus shouldn’t necessarily be on your self-control, I believe that it’s misleading for the title to claim that procrastination has “nothing to do with self-control”, when self-control clearly does play a role in this process.

Research has shown that there is absolutely a connection between sleep and procrastination, with low-quality sleep increasing the likelihood that people will procrastinate, particularly among people who are naturally prone to procrastination.

This is attributed to the fact that sleep is crucial when it comes to replenishing the mental resources that you need in order to self-regulate your behavior effectively.

This article contains a summary of research on the topic which came out recently: https://solvingprocrastination.com/study-procrastination-sle...

I find the article to be a bit misleading.

The title says that procrastination has "nothing to do with self-control", which is obviously an appealing sentiment.

However, the first paper that they reference says that "...if we have a great deal of self-discipline and dutifulness... we may exert the self-control necessary to engage in the task in a timely manner despite the lack of immediate reward or the negative mood that the task elicits. Procrastination, however, is the lack of this self-control, whether as a state or trait. Procrastination is the self-regulatory failure of not exerting the self-control necessary for task engagement... this failure at self-control may be the direct result of a focus on regulating moods and feeling states in the short term."

Overall, a better argument would be that a lack of self-control isn't the driving force behind our decision to procrastinate. Rather, what causes us to procrastinate are things such as anxiety or fear of failure, and a high degree of self-control is what allows us to overcome these issues.

If anyone is interested in learning more about the factors that can cause us to procrastinate, such as anxiety, perfectionism, and reliance on abstract goals, check out this article: https://solvingprocrastination.com/why-people-procrastinate/

Here is the abstract of the original study:

Considerable anecdotal evidence points to the usefulness of humor in the therapeutic process, but empirical evidence is lacking. The purpose of this study, conducted in Belgium, was to search for an association between humor and therapy outcomes in a population of 110 adult psychotherapy clients who attended at least 10 therapy sessions. Clients and their therapist evaluated the frequency and intensity of humorous events, as well as therapy effectiveness, therapeutic alliance, perceived hope, and pleasure in participating in therapy sessions. A strong positive correlation was observed between humor and therapy effectiveness, from both client (rs=0.40; p<0.001) and therapist perspectives (rs=0.37; p<0.001). The link between humor and therapy effectiveness remained significant in subgroups of clients with more severe illness, although these clients reported less humor in their therapy sessions. Further research is needed to determine whether humor enhances outcomes or whether positive outcomes trigger occurrence of humor.

The original study is available here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S01974...

Here is the abstract:

Adolescents who have Social Anxiety Disorder do not receive the support they need. Improvisational theater involves regular exposure to social performance situations, and is recognized as a potential psycho-social support to enhance well-being and symptom reduction. The current study examines whether participating in a school-based improvisational theater program predicts reductions in symptoms of social anxiety. A total of 268 middle and high school students who participated in a ten-week school-based improvisational theater program completed surveys in a single group pre/post design. Adolescents who screened positive for social phobia at the beginning of class reported reduced symptoms of social anxiety at post-test. This change predicts increases in social skills, hope, creative self-efficacy, comfort performing for others, and willingness to make mistakes, along with marginal decreases in symptoms of depression. Given that no prior study has examined school-based improvisational theater training and its relationship to social anxiety, this work offers an important early contribution to the empirical literature on improvisation and mental health. School-based improvisational theater training offers an accessible, non-clinical alternative for addressing social anxiety problems among adolescents.