Just one more episode...

How late-night TV bingeing can ruin your sleep

Jun 08, 2025

We've all done it. You’re watching TV, you're really into a show, you know it's bedtime, but you just can't help watching one more episode before you crash. It can feel like a great way to wind down at the end of a stressful day, and a lot of people really enjoy watching TV in bed (or even falling asleep to the television) - according to the Sleep Foundation, roughly 75% of us watch TV before bed every day.1 (And yes, I’m one of them.)

"Many people get into the habit of falling asleep with the TV on, as they feel the background noise lulls them to sleep or provides a necessary distraction for those who tend to have racing thoughts at bedtime.”
- Wendy Troxel, behavioral sleep medicine specialist2

Unfortunately, watching too much TV last thing at night can be a major sleep disruptor for several reasons. It's well-known, for example, that the light emitted by a TV screen, or even a phone, disrupt melatonin production. This means your brain isn't getting the necessary sleep signals, which makes it much harder for you to fall asleep when you finally decide to go to bed (or go to sleep, if you’re already in bed).3 Most sleep therapists recommend that you stop using a screen at least an hour before you want to get to sleep.4

In addition, if you're enjoying the show, your brain isn't switching off properly. When you close your eyes and try to sleep, you're probably still thinking about the show.5 Astonishingly, that can impact your dreams, and not in a good way. Watching four hours of TV in an evening reduces your REM sleep - that’s the bit that helps with learning, memory, mood, and creativity.6 Not getting enough REM sleep can cause all sorts of physical and mental health problems, including fatigue, mood changes, and an increased risk of serious illnesses: for every 1% reduction in REM sleep, there’s a 9% increase in the risk of dementia.7

The rise of binge-watching

This is a great example of how our brains have been hacked by the modern world. In the early days of television, you didn't have the option just to keep watching. Your show came out once a week, at a specific time, and when the episode was finished, your evening's entertainment was done. With the advent of videos and DVDs, we were no longer constrained by broadcast schedules. Suddenly it became possible to keep watching for as long as we wanted.

Nowadays, in the streaming era, binge-watching is the norm.8 Netflix and the like don't just measure their success by how many people watch a show: they’re far more interested in how many people will watch an entire season in a couple of nights. They’re designed for binge-watchers.

Today’s shows are created to be addictive and keep you watching, one episode after another, without a break, until you collapse from exhaustion. Streaming services automatically play the next episode, trimming out credits and title sequences so that they don't even feel like separate episodes, just one continuous stream of entertainment.9 Most of the time, episodes end on a cliffhanger: twenty years ago you'd have had to wait a week to find out what happens, but now you can find out instantly. You don't even have to click Next, it'll just happen.

So of course, we just keep watching. We can't help it. We're all suckers for a great story. 91% of adults report losing sleep due to binge-watching TV, according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.10

To be fair, it's not unique to television: many's the night I've ended up reading until dawn because I can't put the book down. Just one more chapter, I tell myself, and then when I’ve only got a hundred pages to go, I might as well finish it. And video games are just as bad. There’s always just one little side quest to finish, or one more item to get, or another level to beat. Again, it’s nothing new: “Just one more turn” was a popular saying among Civ players all the way back in the 80s.

So… no TV?

There's nothing wrong with a little TV before bed. Some studies suggest that in moderation, it can be beneficial, helping us to relieve stress. Forget about the day, and relax physically. Interestingly, this only seems to work if you actually concentrate on what you're watching: if you're multitasking, such as using your phone at the same time, as many of us do, the benefits are significantly reduced.11

However, the more you watch, the less benefit you get from it, and at some point the effect becomes negative. A couple of hours is fine, but more than that and you will more than likely be disrupting your sleep.

Much though it's tempting just to watch one more episode, try to resist. Not only will you sleep better, which has all sorts of benefits, but there's another upside too: delaying that gratification, waiting until the next day to find what happens next, will increase your enjoyment of the show. Not only will you be giving it your full attention instead of dozing off, you'll have that great feeling of anticipation for an entire day while you look forward to the next episode.

Unhack Your Brain

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