I get around 7.25 hours of sleep a night on average, and for a long time I have wanted to get eight hours instead. But despite having this as a goal, when it's time for me to go to bed, I often find myself casting about for some sort of activity to do instead: "let me just check YouTube" "maybe a bit of reading before bed would be nice" "I wonder if there's anything really important on the NYT web site", and so on. None of these activities are urgent, and none of them couldn't perfectly well be put off until morning. This often leads to my staying up much later than I'd planned.
There's something in me that feels like going to bed is irritating, a waste of time, a missed opportunity to spend a few moments enjoying myself. Or perhaps it feels like a capitulation, giving up on this day and putting off fun things until tomorrow. I know these feelings are counterproductive, but it seems like they usually win out.
My question is not about strategies for going to bed on time. Rather, my question is about my own thought processes: why would someone resist sleep when they know it's good for them, and will help them enjoy the next day more? Does it reveal something problematic about my personality? Why would a sense of capitulation arise when every day of everyone's life ends with sleep anyway? Where do these impulses come from?
Obviously you don't know me personally - I'm hoping that this behavior is an instance of some well-understood pattern people have written about.
This is a rich and introspective question, and yes—what you’re describing is a well-documented and surprisingly common phenomenon with several overlapping explanations in psychology and behavioral science. It doesn’t imply anything “wrong” with your personality; in fact, many intelligent, reflective people experience precisely this tension.
Here are some frameworks that help explain this kind of resistance to sleep:
This term originated in East Asia and has gained traction more widely. It describes the behavior of delaying sleep to reclaim a sense of autonomy over your time, especially if your day has felt structured by obligations or lacking in personal satisfaction.
I didn’t get enough time to myself today, so I’m taking it now—even if it costs me tomorrow.
It’s an emotional negotiation: sleep is sacrificed not out of rational decision-making, but as a kind of compensation for unmet needs during the day.
As you mentioned, sleep can feel like a capitulation. Psychologically, this has been interpreted as a form of ego resistance. Sleep marks the end of agency for the day: you're no longer making choices, achieving things, or steering your experience.
Some people, especially those with high conscientiousness or a strong internal drive, feel a subtle aversion to this loss of control. It's not that you hate sleep per se, but that the transition to it feels like giving up on possibility—even if that possibility is as trivial as one more YouTube video.
This comes from behavioral economics: we tend to overweight the immediate reward (e.g., watching something interesting, indulging curiosity) and underweight the delayed benefit (feeling well-rested tomorrow). It’s the same principle behind procrastinating on work or skipping the gym.
Knowing something is good for us isn’t always enough; the brain is wired to respond more strongly to immediate gratification, even when the long-term cost is clear.
This cognitive bias refers to our tendency to remember and feel pulled toward incomplete tasks more than completed ones. In your case, "just one more article," or "what if there's something important I missed?" may reflect your brain trying to wrap up loose ends—even if those ends aren't actually important.
Going to sleep can feel like abandoning open tabs, mentally and emotionally. This is especially strong for people with high curiosity or information-seeking drives.
There's a psychoanalytic tradition (Freud, later elaborated by existential thinkers) that frames sleep as a little rehearsal for death. That may sound grandiose, but even outside of Freudian terms, there's something deeply symbolic about sleep: it's an enforced pause, a surrender to unconsciousness, a break in your narrative. People who feel a strong connection to their waking identity might experience a subtle resistance to this daily mini-dissolution. So—does it reveal something problematic?
Not necessarily. It reveals you're human, thoughtful, and perhaps wired with a rich inner life that resists closure. It might suggest you place a high value on agency, exploration, and maximizing the day—which are all positive traits. The downside is just that this can clash with your body’s biological needs.
If anything, the conflict shows you're living at the intersection of competing values: the desire for rest and renewal vs. the desire to keep the fire of consciousness burning a little longer.
If you're curious, I could point you to writers or studies that dig deeper into any of these angles. Do any of these frameworks resonate with how it feels from the inside?