Procrastination: Understanding The Biggest Enemy of University Students

Researcher: Bill Nguyen Research Editor: Linette Borges

Figure 1.

“I swear I will do it tomorrow!” Does that sound like you? As university students, being overwhelmed in your workload is inevitable. However, there are still some individuals, who have learned the secret to a productive life – they finish all their daily to-do lists, hit the gym daily, and especially never have to cram for their exams. Today, we will discuss your “enemy” that prevents you from reaching a productive lifestyle, procrastination!

What is Procrastination?

Procrastination is usually assessed as the preference for performing an effortful task on a later time set instead of doing it immediately. Approximately 70% of students and 20% of adults procrastinate (Le Bouc & Pessiglione, 2022). According to ancient philosophy, procrastination is a prototypical case of askrasia, meaning a lack of self-control or weakness of the will (Le Bouc & Pessiglione, 2022).

In terms of psychology and neurosciences, procrastination behavior across individuals is mainly done by the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex – a part of the brain responsible for making decisions by estimating the effort required to complete a task (Yao et al., 2023) – which will decrease the expected effort of a task if we delay the tasks completion. In other words, even though the reward of finishing the task stays the same, the expected effort in our brain is lower when we do it later compared to when we tackle the task immediately. 

Figure 2.

There are multiple techniques used to study the mechanism of procrastination in the brain, including neuroimaging, twins experiment (to research the genetic component of the trait), and computational models from functional imaging (Le Bouc & Pessiglione, 2022). However, the topic of procrastination remains understudied and requires further investigation. 

How does procrastination affect our mental health and other systems?

Chronic stress consequences:

Many studies with a variety of populations and research methods have shown a consistent positive correlation between general procrastination and stress level (Zhang et al., 2021).

A task that is procrastinated for a long term will lead to the gradual increase of its expected effort required (Le Bouc & Pessiglione, 2022). This will activate the stress response of the endocrine system, stimulating the release of the stress hormone, cortisol. Cortisol induces physiological changes to allow us to focus on tackling the task. However, chronic exposure to cortisol can harm organs and disrupt metabolic activities (Pascoe et al., 2020). 

Higher rate of negative emotions:

Many of negative emotions have been shown to be positively correlated with procrastination, including (Sirois & Pychyl, 2013):

• Guilt

• Anxiety

• Depression

• Shame

• Self-frustration and anger

• Emotional exhaustion

Lower rate of engaging in health-enhancing activities 

Studies have found that procrastination is also responsible for preventing our engagement to health-enhancing activities, such as going to the gym, sports, or even just simply taking a walk (Sirois et al., 2023).

How to beat your procrastination?

Not everyone is David Goggins, therefore we need a more specific strategy to slowly beat procrastination (Samokhval, 2025):

• Track your tasks and create rewards for each task completion

Making tasks visible will motivate and allow you to organize yourself. After every big task or a few small tasks completed, reward yourself! It does not have to be something significant, it can be as simple as a 30-minute break. 

• Break tasks into smaller steps

Breaking down a big task into smaller steps will allow your brain to reduce the expected effort to complete that task. For instance, you can break “Write an essay” down to “make an outline”, “write introduction”, “write body paragraph”, …

• Create routines and design environment

Create cues for your brain and reinforce them to make starting more automatic: same workspace, same start ritual, same time. Adjust your environment to minimize distractions: silence notifications, keep your desk clear, leave your phone somewhere hard to reach.

• The 2-minute rule

You can trick the brain into motion by starting a task that takes less than 2 minutes to complete, such as sending an email, washing a dish, or folding a blanket.

In conclusion, to overcome the mental friction that has been holding you back from starting a productive life, achieving your dream physique, and getting straight A’s without cramming overnight, start with small steps,.  aApply one or two of the tips above and allow the impact to build up gradually. Over time, the momentum will snowball, helping you regain control and thrive in your busy academic life.

References

Le Bouc, R., & Pessiglione, M. (2022). A neuro-computational account of procrastination behavior. Nature Communications, 13(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33119-w

Pascoe, M. C., Thompson, D. R., & Ski, C. F. (2020). Meditation and endocrine health and Wellbeing. Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism, 31(7), 469–477. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tem.2020.01.012 

Samokhval, V. (2025, October 29). How to stop procrastinating: 10 proven strategies to take action today. How to Stop Procrastinating: 10 Proven Strategies to Take Action Today. https://theliven.com/blog/wellbeing/procrastination/how-to-stop-procrastinating-understanding-the-cycle-and-10-effective-strategies

Sirois, F. M., Stride, C. B., & Pychyl, T. A. (2023). Procrastination and health: A longitudinal test of the roles of stress and Health Behaviours. British Journal of Health Psychology, 28(3), 860–875. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjhp.12658

Sirois, F., & Pychyl, T. (2013). Procrastination and the priority of short‐term mood regulation: Consequences for future self. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(2), 115–127. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12011

Yao, Y.-W., Song, K.-R., Schuck, N. W., Li, X., Fang, X.-Y., Zhang, J.-T., Heekeren, H. R., & Bruckner, R. (2023). The dorsomedial prefrontal cortex represents subjective value across effort-based and risky decision-making. NeuroImage, 279, 120326. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2023.120326

Zhang, L. Y., Kato, C., Aoki, K., & Otsuka, Y. (2021). Relationship between procrastination and stress responses. The Open Psychology Journal, 14(1), 163–166. https://doi.org/10.2174/1874350102114010163