A young Australian worker, bored with the monotony of full-time work, is taking a different kind of “revenge.” Jay Cull said Yahoo Finance After getting his first job since college, his life felt like Groundhog Day.

It’s not that he doesn’t enjoy his job as content and social media coordinator at the Brisbane Powerhouse; in fact, he’s passionate about it. But he lives about 40 minutes away and when he comes home, cooks and eats, the young Australian says he has little time for socializing, self-improvement, exercise or relaxation before he has to go to bed at a reasonable hour.

To balance his professional and private life, Cull began what he called “revenge lessons.”

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There are different names for it, but the most common is “revenge bedtime procrastination,” where people forgo sleep to gain a few hours of time for themselves.

“I probably stay up until 1 or 2 in the morning because I just want to spend time watching TikTok or a TV show to keep myself entertained and then I do the whole thing again the next day,” he said. Yahoo Finance.

“So I’m going to sacrifice my sleep so I can have more free time for myself.”

He makes up for the lack of sleep by drinking a few cups of coffee a day. Cull says that’s a compromise he’s willing to make in order to avoid feeling like he’s in a never-ending hamster wheel of working, eating and sleeping.

While he said he would like to try more hobbies so that he doesn’t spend his revenge hours exclusively browsing social media or watching TV, he is happy with how he spends his time because it helps him “numb” his brain after a hard day at work.

Dangers of lack of sleep: “It’s a harmful cycle”

There are countless studies on how sleep, or lack of sleep, can have a massive impact on a person’s well-being.

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“Without the recommended seven to nine hours of sleep a night, people get into a damaging cycle that makes it difficult to perform at their best during the day,” Rachel Beard, sleep wellness manager at AH Beard’s Sleep Wellness Centre, told Yahoo Finance.

“You wake up tired, feeling caught off guard and unable to make the most of your day. As a result, you’re tired all day and end up feeling like doomscrolling.

“Not only is lack of sleep harmful in itself, but the blue light from devices brings with it a whole host of side effects.”

She added that scrolling through social media close to bedtime can stimulate your brain so much that it can be difficult to switch off and fall asleep.

According to a Harvard study, the performance of a person who stays awake for 17 to 19 hours a day (the equivalent of seven to five hours of sleep) is more impaired than that of a person with a blood alcohol level of 0.05 percent (the legal driving limit in Australia).

So if you only get a few hours of sleep a night, you are technically worse than a drunk driver.

According to the Sleep Foundation, lack of sleep can impair memory and decision-making skills, reduce productivity, increase the risk of poor driving, lead to difficulty regulating emotions, and be linked to depression and anxiety.

This last aspect can be even more amplified if you spend a lot of time on social media, as all you see there are other people’s highlights, which can make your normal office life seem pretty boring.

Beard revealed Yahoo Finance that revenge lessons could be a canary in the coal mine.

“It’s important to pay attention to our relationship with sleep because it can be a powerful indicator of what’s going on in our lives,” she said.

“Procrastinating bedtime out of revenge can be a sign of burnout. If you feel balanced and in control of your day, you probably don’t need to sacrifice your bedtime to feel like you have time for yourself.

Warning for those who feel like they can’t control their revenge bedtime procrastination

Some Australians may be happy with their revenge hour behaviour and wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, but there are ways to potentially reduce the need for it.

Amanda Gordon, Indeed’s occupational psychologist, said: Yahoo Finance that Australians who work from home during their week could improve their attitudes if they went into the office every now and then.

“Sometimes people tell themselves they’re just working when in reality they’re doing completely different things, like meeting someone during their lunch break and making plans for the weekend,” she said.

She encouraged workers to consider whether they can find time to exercise or meet up with friends during their lunch break so that there is less pressure to do so before or after work.

But Gordon had a stern warning for Australians who spend their revenge hours scrolling through social media.

“They can go to bed whenever they want and choose to be tired the next day, or they can go to bed (at a reasonable time) so they can enjoy the next day … they are sacrificing pleasure for non-pleasure, which is scrolling,” she said.

“It’s time for a little self-evaluation, whether on your own or with a professional. That’s one of the things you should do if you feel that way about life and think it’s just boring and I don’t have a life. Talk about it with someone who can help you find a way that gives you a meaningful life while you work.”

How revenge lessons can work for night owls

Society seems to be divided between early risers and those who call themselves night owls.

The latter – depending on how strong a person’s preference is to stay awake at night – can be affected by the 9:00 a.m. start time that is typical in the business world.

The Sleep Foundation stated that foregoing sleep in favor of leisure “cannot be seen as a lack of self-control, but rather as an attempt to find recovery time in response to stress.”

However, the foundation also found that revenge lessons could tip the scales in the direction of a lack of self-control among early starters.

“Our ability to exercise self-control is at its lowest at the end of the day, which can encourage sleep procrastination,” it says. “Some people may have a natural tendency to procrastinate in general, including before bed.”

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