Five written plans built wake-up habits no better than a short video
Who it’s about: Adults
- No difference
Writing an if-then plan or another plan for getting up built the habit no better than a short video.
- Action: Make an if-then plan for your obstacletested
- Action: Get upused
- Rule: After you wake upused
- Rule: In a single sessionused
Randomised trial of 286 US adults who snooze and sleep badly · vs people who only watched the short video · they rated themselves · ⚠ many people dropped out
- No comparison
After a short video on not snoozing, getting up felt more like a habit, but everyone saw it.
Randomised trial of 286 US adults who snooze and sleep badly · no comparison group · they rated themselves · ⚠ many people dropped out
The study
Who took part
286 adults in the US took part online. They slept badly, snoozed a lot and woke at different times each day. They were about 35 to 40 on average.
What they did
Everyone watched a two-minute video about waking at the same time and not snoozing. Five groups also got one written plan to practise each day. These included an if-then plan, a get-up routine and thinking about their values. It was all one online session.
What happened
No plan beat the video alone at 6 weeks or 3 months. That held for getting up and for snoozing. Most groups, even the video group, said their habits got better over time. The values group did not improve clearly on every measure. Only 103 of 286 people stayed to 3 months, and parts of the paper are garbled.
Source
Let's kick that habit: An experiment of five habit-change strategies on habits and symptoms among adults with sleep problems (2025)
DOI: 10.1016/j.jbtep.2025.102049 (opens in a new tab)Tools in this study
Action4
Make an if-then plan for your obstacleImplementation intentions or WOOP/MCII: if this obstacle happens, then I will do that.
Action4
Learn how the problem worksPsychoeducation about procrastination, habits, sleep, routines or ADHD.
