(ORDO NEWS) — A survey of thousands of college students has shown that procrastination isn’t just bad for the state of affairs.
People who are especially prone to procrastination may develop physical and mental impairments. The desire to put off solving problems until the last moment is probably familiar to everyone.
Some time ago, scientists showed that too much procrastination correlated with poorer health outcomes and better sleep quality.
However, what is the cause here, and what is the effect, has not yet been clear. Possibly poor physical condition leads to a lack of energy and an urge to procrastinate.
Or, on the contrary, the habit of procrastination makes it difficult to play sports, try to lead a healthy lifestyle and visit doctors on time.
To answer this question, Swedish scientists conducted a longitudinal study of local students, following their condition and behavior over a long period of time.
For this, 3,525 volunteers from eight Swedish universities were recruited to complete detailed questionnaires about physical and mental health.
Of these, 2,587 took part in the resurvey nine months later.
The authors divided the participants into two groups, with high or low procrastination cravings at the first stage of the survey.
At the second stage, the first group showed more pronounced symptoms of depression, stress and anxiety, reported worse sleep quality, pain in the joints of the hands, and even financial difficulties.
In the low procrastination group, these symptoms were less common, even after adjusting for age, gender, income, and other sociopsychological characteristics.
“In previous work, participants were examined only at one time point, this did not allow us to understand what appeared first – procrastination or health problems.
By asking students to complete questionnaires at several points in time, we can confidently say that the corresponding levels of procrastination were recorded before health problems were noted, ”the authors of the study summarized.
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