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Why Everything Can Feel Worse After Midnight, According to Researchers

The ‘Mind After Midnight’ hypothesis explores how nighttime wakefulness may affect mood, impulse control, and the decisions you make.

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The NY Post recently explored the “Mind After Midnight” phenomenon. We’ve all experienced a spike in anxiety, impulsivity, and overall negative thoughts at one point or another that seems to have been triggered by the external darkness and the heightened chill in the air. While the night can be a source of poetic inspiration, for whose glory Novalis crafted his immortal hymns, it often seems to summon our most unbecoming behaviors, including substance abuse and misuse.

Clearly, the tiredness and more that result from wakefulness at night affect our ability to think (particularly about consequences); and a group of intellectuals from top institutions like Harvard, who coined the term “Mind After Midnight,” jointly emphasize that staying up late doesn’t only affect you the next day but even before you’ve hit the pillow.

(They define “Mind After Midnight” as “a combination of circadian-dependent decreases in molecular and cortical activity and responsiveness with sleep-loss-dependent alterations in synaptic signaling and cortical........

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