Is ‘bed rotting’ self-care or laziness? What to know about this Gen Z trend

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”Bed rotting” is a social media trend depicting people laying in bed with no plans other than to eat snacks, watch TV and “rot.”

The phrase refers to staying in bed all day without engaging in any productive activities. Generation Z uses it to describe taking a break from daily responsibilities like work, school and other commitments that may cause burnout.

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However, is this trend as unhealthy as it sounds? Here’s what you need to know.

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What is bed rotting and where did it come from?

The term “bed rotting” originated on TikTok, where it currently has over 6,000 videos tagged under the topic. It describes when someone chooses to stay in bed all day without engaging in any productive activities or completing any tasks. Videos often depict people lying in bed all day without doing anything constructive.

Why is it controversial?

The trend has gained some negative traction as it is often associated with laziness.

When taken to a certain extent, bed rotting can also reflect a poorer state of mental health, such as depression.

“It’s all fun and trendy until you cannot physically get out of bed or brush your teeth,” said TikTok user @‌caitsrecovery.

Keith Dobson, professor emeritus of clinical psychology at the University of Calgary, said depression can be a natural cause of bed rotting due to the associations between mood and activity.

“There’s definitely an association between levels of depression and levels of activity,” said Dobson. “It’s probably a reciprocal relationship between them.”

He said this lack of activity comes with physical, psychological and social risks.

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“If you’re sitting or staying in bed, your heart rate is not being activated, your muscles are not being used, you’re not being stimulated by the things that you would run into day-to-day. There are some both physiological and psychological reasons,” he said. “You’re not as socially engaged, either. You could be making phone calls or engaging in social media, but you’re not meeting people. From a social relationship perspective, you’re being disengaged as well.”

He said while bed rotting can be a potentially helpful way to reset, it can be detrimental if done as a form of avoidance.

“If you’re engaging in social avoidance, you’re not managing the social relationships or the issues that you might have,” he said. “There’s emotional avoidance where you’re specifically not paying attention to your emotions so you don’t have to feel badly. There’s also strategic avoidance where you may have a problem to solve, but you don’t really know what to do with it so you do nothing.”

Are there benefits?

Dobson said that “avoiding the world” for a while can also act as a form of self-care.

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“Bed rotting as a strategy can be potentially healthy in some cases if people are doing it for a specific period of time as a way to take care of themselves or be nurtured,” said Dobson. “In some cases, just taking care of yourself and avoiding the world for a period of time could be seen as a kind of self-caring activity. I think the problem is how long it goes on and what form it takes while you’re there.”

According to writer Sela Breen, taking time to partake in bed rotting can be a “therapeutic” way for people to let go of their responsibilities for a while.

“Oftentimes, at the end of a long day of classes, my friends and I say we just need to be horizontal,” she wrote for Verywell Mind. “It doesn’t matter what we are doing — starting homework, debriefing the day, calling our family — but it needs to be done lying down.”

So, bed rotting in moderation may help people refresh themselves both physically and mentally.

“I will literally fall back into the same old habits if I do not give myself time to not only rest but to also rot,” said TikTok user @‌lifeasraven in a video.

How can people partake in bed rotting in a healthy way?

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“The general advice we give for helping people with mental health challenges is not to go to bed during the day,” said Dobson. “There are prospective studies that show there’s a positive association between napping during the daytime and mental health problems.”

He also suggests people save the bed for its intended purposes rather than overusing it, which can lead to a poorer sleep quality.

“Our general suggestion is to keep the bed for sleep and for sex,” he said. “The potential effect in staying in bed during the day is that you can then start associating the bed with not being asleep. When you go to bed at night and actually intend to sleep, you might find that it’s less easy because you’ve now associated the bed with being on social media or watching TV or eating pizzas.”

People should also be aware of its potentially detrimental effects and avoid indulging in it for too long.

Some social media users have even addressed the potential of bed rotting becoming unhealthy in large amounts, with solutions on how to have an effective, relaxing day.

“I think it’s really a question of degree,” said Dobson. “If you do this from time-to-time to take care of yourself, I don’t think it’s a problem. If it becomes a regular habit, if it starts to interfere with your regular sleep, if you find that you don’t really know what else to do except to go to your bed, that’s when it starts to become a problem.”

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