People who often put everything off until the last minute, known as procrastination, report more health and malaise issues, such as depression, anxiety or poor sleep, according to a new study. on Swedish students.
- Professor Ferrari discovered that around 20% of adults are considered chronic procrastinators, which puts them at higher risk of developing mental health conditions like depression and phobias.
- Previous studies have suggested there are long-term health consequences: chronic procrastination has been linked to higher risks of depression and anxiety, high blood pressure and heart disease.
- According to Professor Ferrari, cognitive behavioral therapy can help the chronic procrastinator to attack the root of the problem.
Procrastinators, that is, people who keep putting off their to-do list until the next day, can not only see their professional or their studies suffer, but also their health. This is what a team of researchers discovered by following a group of more than 3,500 students from eight Swedish universities, during their latest study, published online on January 4 in JAMA Network Open.
Depression, anxiety… Procrastinators are more at risk
The team focused on a particularly procrastination-prone group that was part of a larger health study. Initially, students were assessed for symptoms of depression and anxiety, unhealthy lifestyle habits, and body pain. Three months later, they completed a standard procrastination questionnaire.
Those who scored high on a procrastination scale were more likely to report certain health problems nine months later. Compared to their non-procrastinating peers, they reported more depression and anxiety issues, as well as more upper body pain and poor sleep. On top of that, they did less physical exercise and reported more loneliness than other students.
Chronic procrastination affects long-term health
According to the study’s lead author, Fred Johansson, a researcher at Sophiahemmet University in Stockholm, Sweden, this could be linked to the “freedom” that students generally enjoy, with a relatively unstructured life where deadlines are often distant, which Johansson says leaves a lot of room for procrastination.
The researchers pointed out that the results do not prove that procrastination, by itself, directly caused these problems, such as delaying a doctor’s visit and allowing an irritating health condition to worsen. Incidentally, Fred Johansson said the links between procrastination and health problems were “rather weak,” meaning they didn’t indicate a large effect. But their results reinforce the idea that procrastination, when chronic, is an important factor. Indeed, the connections held even when the researchers took into account the students’ symptoms at the start of the study.
“Not everyone is a procrastinator”
As to why procrastination would harm people’s health, the researcher agreed that stress could be a significant reason. Chronic procrastinators may also lack “feel-good behaviors,” he noted, such as physical activity.
“Not everyone is a procrastinator”recalls Joseph Ferrari, professor of psychology at DePaul University in Chicago, who has been studying the subject since the 1980s, in a communicated. “Dragging your feet doing your taxes, or something equally nasty, is normal. Chronic procrastination is different”, he says. It is a problem when it becomes a way of life that is expressed in all spheres of life, from work to home to social relationships.