The hour is late, and I am tired. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to do the sensible thing and go to bed. This is the first time today that no one has needed anything from me. The first time I haven’t been expected to be working, cooking, tidying, fetching, managing, delivering, caring or doing any of the other panoply of tasks most working-age adults seem to face on any given day. It’s just me, being me, in the quiet. Why would I cut this precious moment short?

I have always been a night owl – our owlish (night-time) or larkish (morning) chronotypes are set by our genetics – but in recent years I’ve become a “revenge sleep procrastinator”, too. This clunky translation of the Chinese term bàofùxìng áoyè became popular on social media during the pandemic. In China, most sleep or bedtime procrastinators are workers on the soul-sapping and horribly common 9-9-6 schedule (9am-9pm, six days a week) who, despite being exhausted, use their late-night, post-work hours to claw back some sense of self, even when they know they should be sleeping. My situation – two small children plus full-time job – is embarrassingly far from their experience, and yet many of us in the west find ourselves doing the same things. The revenge bit – which might be better translated as “retaliatory” – is that we are avenging ourselves against our busy lives, either by staying up too late or by not going to sleep once in bed, often because we’re on our screens.

As a studied phenomenon, sleep procrastination is a new thing. It was first mentioned in an academic paper in 2014, and we don’t know exactly how many sleep procrastinators are out there. But from anecdotal evidence and a few studies, I’m going to bet it’s a lot, and rising: in a global survey of 13,000 people by Philips this year, 70% of adults reported a new sleep issue since the pandemic began.

Dr Lindsay Browning, sleep specialist and author of a new book, Navigating Sleeplessness, agrees. “I am seeing many more clients who describe staying up later because they need alone time.” In China, it’s young people working brutal hours, but in Europe, studies suggest it’s also parents and students. But sleep procrastination can affect anyone who struggles with stress, extended working hours or inadequate downtime, which, in pandemic times, puts many more of us at risk.

Earlier this year, Caroline Newte Hardie set up Peace+Riot, a family-friendly cafe-bar in south London, specifically to give knackered parents more support. But long hours working on a new business have exacerbated her revenge procrastination habit. “If I finish working at midnight, I need an hour, as I’m wired, even though I’m tired. Before I had kids I never needed time to myself, but now I need at least an hour to catch my breath, especially if I’ve spent the day in problem-solving mode. If I went straight to bed, my life would be just work-childcare-work-childcare.”

If you’re an owl who doesn’t have to get up early, going to bed late doesn’t matter. But the world isn’t timetabled for those of us who, ideally, would mooch about until 1am and then get up at 9am, so our nights are shorter than they should be. (Being married to a lark who incomprehensibly gets up at 6am to play tennis makes me experience this even more sharply.) Apart from twitchy eyes and a temper (just me?), what might this mean in the long run?

One downside is that sleep deprivation has been shown to make us more likely to procrastinate the next day. Matthew Walker, professor of neuroscience and psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of the bestseller Why We Sleep, tells me that impulsive people are more likely to procrastinate in the first place (they like instant gratification). “But lack of sleep increases impulsivity, which increases your likelihood of sleep procrastination. It’s almost a self-fulfilling prophecy that the less sleep that we get, the more impulsive we become and the more vulnerable we are to sleep procrastination.”

“The consequences of sleep deprivation are endless,” says Dr Chris Winter, neurologist, sleep specialist and author of The Rested Child and The Sleep Solution. “Cognitive decline, cardiovascular disease, stroke, obesity, diabetes, and numerous short-term performance issues – mood, concentration, memory, attention, decision-making – are all affected.” As Walker puts it: “The shorter your sleep, the shorter your lifespan.”

Laura Wyatt-Smith is a consultant in the charity sector, a coach and a recently reformed bedtime procrastinator. “I always felt going to bed early – or even on time – would be a sign of defeat, that I’d given up on ‘me’ time. I thought I should keep bed as a place for sleep and sex. Relaxation was what I did in the living room – although all I was actually doing there was watching crap TV.” After wrestling with late nights for years, she says: “I realised I needed to reframe what going to bed early was: changing my idea of the bedroom to a place of sanctuary, so going there wasn’t a defeat. Now, my bedroom is a place where I want to be awake and have quality time for myself, reading a book or doing skincare or meditation. Going to bed early has become my reward, an appealing prospect rather than a punishment.”

Making your bedroom inviting is helpful, too – whether that’s softening the lighting with lamps or a candle, or removing anything that constitutes a visual to-do list, such as piles of ironing or paperwork.

Wyatt-Smith has also learned to accept that she needs an hour to transition towards sleep, so if she wants to be off by 11pm, she goes to her room at 10pm. “Because it’s something I’m looking forward to, I’m more inclined to do it early,” she says. “At the end of the hour, I’m ready to sleep.” In a way, she has simply bent procrastination to her will – tricking her brain by using what would have been empty television time to nudge it towards sleepiness.

Are there other fixes? “Get plenty of daylight in the morning,” says Walker. “That will enhance the quality of your sleep, increase your sleepiness and should put a buffer in place against sleep procrastination. Another thing is getting darkness at night. We are a dark-deprived society and we need darkness at night to trigger the release of a hormone called melatonin. As melatonin rises, we get sleepier. Try to dim half of the lights in your house in the last hour before bed: you will be surprised at how sleepy that will make you feel, and how much more resilient to procrastination.”

Walker also recommends imposing a phone rule, to prevent losing yet another half hour to scrolling or online shopping once we make it into bed. “If you are only allowed to use your phone standing up in the bedroom, after five or six minutes of standing up, you’ll want to sit or lie down, and the phone has to go away.” His final trick is to get ready for bed before settling in for that late-night Netflix session. Speaking personally, once I’m in my pyjamas, I doubt I would even bother to go back to the TV.

Sleep procrastination is complex, says Winter. “We should feel validated in wanting ‘me’ time; it’s natural and healthy. But finding time alone needs to be planned and scheduled, carved out in a way that does not take away from sleep – because lack of sleep is eventually, if not already, going to make work or parenting much more difficult.”

For me, methods and practices matter less than mindset. It’s weighing up the costs against the benefits that has made me more likely to start getting ready for bed at 10pm, along with dimming the lights in the evening and ruthlessly cutting out chunks of daytime for myself. (The other day, I sat on the sofa reading a book, in daylight, something I haven’t allowed myself to do for several years.) At long last, I’ve learned that if I get the solitude I want at midnight, I’m sabotaging the day ahead, along with my health.

Quick GuideSaturday magazine Show

This article comes from Saturday, the new print magazine from the Guardian which combines the best features, culture, lifestyle and travel writing in one beautiful package. Available now in the UK and ROI.

Photograph: GNM

I’m only a week into going to sleep about 45 minutes earlier than usual – come back to me in a couple of months to see if I’ve retrained myself properly – but that’s almost five and a half extra hours of sleep a week. And not to sound smug, but I do feel … better.

Series two of Rebecca Seal’s podcast, the Solo Collective, about how to cope with working alone, is available now

Styling credits Paint: Little Greene. Curveball bed and Slam Dunk floor lamp: Loaf. Side table: Conran Shop. LSA tumbler, Tonic eye mask and Panon velvet throw: Amara. Echo clock: Newgate. Bed linen: The Secret Linen store. Casaco rug: made.com. Pukka armchair: Ligne Rose. Zeus slippers: Asos