Stealing Back the Night: Revenge Bedtime Procrastination Stories

Inside this volume

Fifty first-person accounts describe revenge bedtime procrastination: staying up late, tired and knowing the alarm is close, because the evening is the only time nobody is asking for anything. The writers include parents of toddlers and teenagers, an accountant with three boys, a healthcare worker baking bread at two, a first-year doctor on the floor with a puzzle game, a call-centre worker who had to ask to use the bathroom, a bus driver up at 3:20, a pastor, a dairy farmer, a camp worker on two weeks on, two weeks off and carers for a husband with Parkinson's and a mother with dementia, from Accra to Osaka and Dayton to Edinburgh. Their late hours went to dramas, fan fiction, online shopping, records, quilts, dating apps and calls with a sister abroad. Several had near misses, among them a drift into the next lane on the highway and mistakes on a hospital ward. Some found something more than a habit: a sleep test that showed apnea, insomnia, a body clock that ran late, time blindness. Others moved the phone to the kitchen, signed a flatmate curfew contract, changed shifts, asked a partner for an hour, or grieved. Not every story ends tidily, and several writers say they are still tired and still working on it.

Who it's for

For anyone who stays up past their own good sense to claim back a little time, and for the partners and families wondering why the lamp is still on.

Format · Instant download · PDF & EPUB · Fifty first-person accounts · PDF: 285 pages

A collection of personal testimony, offered as companion reading — not medical advice.

• 50 single-author testimonies from real people
• A short, plain-language introduction to the topic
• Editor's note, contents page, and curated resource list
• Professional interior typesetting and an original cover

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