Headphone Eye Mask
How I use a Bluetooth headphone eye mask to sleep better
Amazon Link to headphone eye mask that I use (affiliate)
Why are you staying up so late?
You likely have “revenge bedtime procrastination” and are messing up your circadian rhythm with bright light exposure before bed.
Revenge Bedtime Procrastination
Learned a very relatable term today: “報復性熬夜” (revenge bedtime procrastination), a phenomenon in which people who don’t have much control over their daytime life refuse to sleep early in order to regain some sense of freedom during late night hours.
— daphne (@daphnekylee) June 28, 2020
If you struggle to fall asleep at night, you may be a victim of revenge bedtime procrastination. This is when you stay up late to do something you know you shouldn’t be doing, like watching television or scrolling through social media.
You tell yourself, “I’ll just watch one more episode,” or “I’ll just read a few more articles.”
You know you should be asleep hours ago, but you can’t seem to drift off. You keep scrolling through your phone, checking the news, and scrolling some more.
It’s a common problem in our 24/7 world, where we’re always connected, and there’s always something new to consume. A survey from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found that 93% of Gen Z have lost sleep because they stayed up “past their bedtime” to view or participate in social media.
Circadian Rhythm
Bright light from electronics is terrible for your natural sleep cycles. Studies have shown that exposure to bright light before bed can disrupt your circadian rhythm and make it harder to fall asleep.
Circadian rhythm is the 24-hour internal clock that dictates hormones, energy levels, and when we feel awake or sleepy.
You’ll naturally feel sleepy at night and get better sleep if you avoid disrupting your circadian rhythm.
Headphone Eye Mask
So what’s the solution?
Listening to podcasts with a headphone eye mask
If you’re unfamiliar, a headphone eye mask is an eye mask with built-in Bluetooth headphones. You can listen to a podcast while wearing the eye mask, which blocks out all light.
You can buy the one I prefer here (affiliate)
These are flat and go over your ears, which I prefer instead of having AirPods inside my ears or large headphones over my ears.
Simply coercing yourself to go to bed early is hard, so I prefer to replace my doomscrolling with a healthier habit that I look forward to before bed.
Putting on the mask cuts off your access to distractions, signals to the brain it’s time for bed, and makes it easier to focus on winding down for the night.
I’ve found audio content slows down my brain compared to reactive scrolling.
Thirty minutes before I want to go to bed, I put on a podcast with a sleep timer, so it shuts off after an hour, and listen to it while I drift off to sleep.
My favorite type of audio content is podcast interviews, but a vast range of audio content is available, including podcasts specifically meant for falling asleep.
You won’t fully absorb the content if you’re listening to it while falling asleep, so I usually re-listen to it on my morning walk the next day.
Sometimes I feel guilty about not fully absorbing the podcasts, but there’s so much content that I’ll never listen to it all anyway.
I don’t listen to audiobooks since those are a bit more stimulating and require more long-term attention.
Suggested Podcasts
These are some of the podcasts I’ve been listening to recently.
Lewis Howes School of Greatness
If you’re struggling to get a good night’s sleep, give a headphone eye mask a try. It might be the key to breaking your cycle of bedtime procrastination and getting the rest you need.