Is it a disease to have a habit of "stepping to the limit" in doing things? Study reveals the consequences of procrastination: you are more likely to suffer from depression, insomnia, and back pain
I am used to putting off work projects and school assignments until the day before the “deadline”. When my partner asks me to do household chores, I always want to put them off until the last minute. The above-mentioned “procrastination” mentality often occurs around you and me, but may it lead to serious physical and mental problems? A study in the authoritative medical journal “JAMA” shows that procrastination may be related to anxiety, bad living habits, and even severe physical pain.
Be careful if you have a habit of procrastinating and pushing yourself to the limit! Research: Beware of “4 major problems” in your body
The research was jointly sponsored by Uppsala University, Sofia Hammer University and Dalarna University in Sweden. The research team introduced a total of 3,525 college students from 3 universities, with an average age of 24.8 years old. The research was conducted from 2019 to 2021. The team used the Swedish version of the “Pure Procrastination Scale” to measure the subjects’ procrastination. They had to rate themselves from 1 to 5, including 5 items, totaling 25 points. .
In addition to understanding daily procrastination, subjects were also asked to report on their physical and psychological conditions. Nine months after the random interview, the research team announced the measurement results of the regression model, which showed that the greater the increase in the subject’s procrastination questionnaire score, the more related it is to the following four major issues:
Psychological problems: such as depression, anxiety, psychological stress, etc.
Upper limb pain: such as pain in the neck, upper and lower back, upper and lower arms, etc.
Unhealthy lifestyle: such as poor sleep quality, lack of exercise, smoking tobacco and marijuana, alcohol abuse, etc.
Social psychological factors: such as loneliness and financial difficulties.
Having to hand in homework at night and writing it in the morning can lead to extreme anxiety and guilt
In addition, the study also found that subjects who tended to procrastinate on their to-do tasks or homework in daily life had lower overall health conditions than ordinary people. Study author Fred Johansson pointed out that people often think that procrastination is not a big problem, but this study subverts this idea. “Previous related literature has pointed out that procrastination is related to negative health conditions.”
Johansson takes the homework of college students as an example: If the final assignment needs to be handed in on Monday night, and if you delay typing until Monday morning, the final result will not only be unlikely to get high marks, but may also lead to severe anxiety and depression, which will affect your psychology. state. If this situation were replaced by an office worker, similar results would occur. “One’s own guilt and the blame from superiors are most likely to affect an individual’s mental state.”
However, because the trial was observational, the researchers cannot yet prove that delays were the sole cause of the participants’ health problems. Johansson said more research and larger sample sizes are needed to clarify the connection between procrastination and personal health.
A must read for those with terminal procrastination! Experts reveal “6 tips” to help improve procrastination behavior
If procrastination has seriously affected your life, you should be careful that “chronic procrastination” has caused certain damage to the body, mind and soul. In the past, academic circles have found that chronic procrastination is more common in patients with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and is also more likely to occur in younger groups, such as college students, office workers, and young workers.
Although procrastination is not considered a disease, it can still affect a person’s life. And how can young people improve chronic procrastination and make work or study more efficient? Past research is listed below:
Break tasks into chunks. “Nature Communication” research believes that a major task is like climbing a mountain. It is certainly very difficult to reach the top in one go. You might as well break the task into small parts and divide it into several days to help make the task more manageable. You can also motivate yourself through small rewards every time you complete a short-term goal.
Take advantage of interpersonal pressure. The journal “Patient Preference and Adherence” points out that sharing task content with partners, relatives or friends and telling them your goals and timetable; or completing tasks with others can increase the excitement and freshness of task completion and reduce the need to complete tasks. time.
Make the task a competition. Continuing from the above research, treat boring or monotonous tasks as a competition against yourself, such as washing 10 dishes in 5 minutes; or playing music while working, and reward yourself after completing the task.
Close redundant paging. “Pakistan Journal of Medical Science” shows that too many paginations and web pages can affect work concentration and cause procrastination. Therefore, turning off distractions such as social media and mobile phones, and closing useless web pages can help organize your thoughts and avoid procrastination.
Get professional training. A study published by the U.S. National Institute of Health (NIH) pointed out that procrastination may be related to their own lack of professionalism. Therefore, it is recommended that workers or students receive professional training or courses in their spare time to reduce the time cost of work and avoid avoidance. Mindset causes procrastination.
Seek medical attention and receive treatment. Contact a psychiatrist and psychological counselor to understand the root cause of your procrastination and the mentality behind your procrastination behavior. If you are a patient with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, you should take your medication on time and receive treatment from a professional physician.
Source:
Chunking as the result of an efficiency computation trade-off
Accountability: a missing construct in models of adherence behavior and in clinical practice
The potential effect of technology and distractions on undergraduate students’ concentration
Further reading:
