What is Bed Rotting and is it bad for you?

In today’s world, constant grind and productivity is often glamorized without a sideline mention of its adverse impacts on health. Many people tend to overlook their personal needs while checking on their long list of deadlines. This is also the reason why we have an increasing number of mental health disorders with common aetiology being chronic stress or past traumas.

Healthcare experts agree and advise never to take constitutional symptoms lightly as such symptoms often hint towards an underlying budding health disorder. These constitutional symptoms include weight loss, fatigue, body ache, unexplained fever, night sweats and anorexia.

With the use of social media, many people are identifying their unusual symptoms and get concerned enough to show up at the healthcare expert’s clinic. It is an excellent aspect of social media where healthcare professionals discuss matters that require mass awareness. Bed Rotting is also an initiative by the users of social media. In the article below, we will discuss bed rotting, its health benefits and understand if it has any health implications.

What is Bed Rotting?

“Bed Rotting” is a term coined by the trend-setters of social media. It is the act of spending hours in bed during the day to recharge from previous activities, hustle, or stress. The popular social media app TikTok initiated the trend of “Bed Rotting” with self-care motive in August 2023. Over a million users viewed and followed the trend by filming themselves lying in bed for many hours during the day doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Bed rotting is not always a pre-planned activity, rather it stems from boredom and depression as well.

Origin of the trend:

Now some individuals may question why a common life experience must turn into a trend. The trend of bed rotting has multifactorial origins based on the global changes and technological advancements during the past few years.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the fast-paced world was made to hold its horses. Educational institutes were shut down for months, people were confined to work from home, the state’s economy crippled with no signs of hope for tomorrow. In such instances, people increased their use of social media to stay aware of the outside world and invested in self-care to beat down the virus in case it knocks at their doorstep. With no social interaction for weeks, people started seeing signs of mental health illnesses. Health care experts around the globe started raising mass awareness regarding mental health illnesses. Celebrities and social media influencers popularized these concepts and adopted self-care behaviours.

Bed rotting became one such form of self-care in which people turned off their outside world, muted the work orders from their superiors and went to bed without the care of setting an alarm. Bed rotting took shape from such multifactorial background within the past few years. While the world faced back-to-back challenges, human race held on to self-care measures to stay sane.

This had to be shared around and turned into a trend to encourage taking a breath before jumping off to the next work challenge. Bed rotting is a short-term retreat from stresses of the busy life. In this trend, people were encouraged to do anything that they please such as bingeing on their favourite TV show while having a large pizza in bed! Sounds like a plan for the next weekend.

Health Implications of Bed Rotting:

Bed rotting is fun and harmless, initially at least. Once an individual gets used to it and increases the period of bed rotting, it must come with a set of health implications as well. Enlisted below are some of the side effects of bed rotting:

1. Couch-Potato lifestyle:

Also known as sedentary lifestyle, couch potato lifestyle is led by an individual with no interest in moving around, attend to their home chores or get back to working. This lifestyle calls for a list of medical health disorders such as obesity, coronary heart disease and disorders of the joints and muscles. Staying at home for longer periods of time without receiving vitamin D from the sun also results in mood disorders such as anxiety and depression.

2. Isolation:

Bed rotting for a prolong period creates a withdrawal from real-life social interactions and promotes isolation. Individuals tend to resort time and again to bed rotting as a way of escaping from social settings and end up isolating themselves. It impacts the social relationships and cause substantial reduction in potential and productivity of an individual. Social isolation also exacerbates the feelings of apathy and low mood that contributes to mental health issues.

3. Sleep-Wake Cycle:

Bed rotting is a retreat from work to treat the mind with some rest. As the body receives sufficient rest, it won’t signal the brain to get some sleep at night. This eventually disturbs the sleep-wake cycle and cause sleeplessness or insomnia. Staying awake during the night disturbs the circadian rhythm (biological clock) and cause disturbance in the early morning release of cortisol hormone. In the long run, the bed rotting result in a set of health conditions such as insomnia, anxiety, hormonal imbalance, and reduced cognition.

4. Tendency to Procrastinate:

Procrastination is a common outcome of prolong bed rotting as individuals prioritize rest instead of chasing goals. This loss of interest in work and deliberately delaying the produce has adverse impact on profile and professional attitude of that individual. Loss of productivity also means lagging in self-care that manifests itself in the form of poor personal growth and development.

Ways to follow “Bed Rotting” in a healthy manner:

Bed rotting offers temporary rest from the routine stresses. It provides relief to both mind and body when followed in a healthy manner.

Prolong exhaustion also requires a long rest that is often misused and result in adverse effects of bed rotting. It is important to set limits and boundaries before getting into the bed for bed rotting. By this method, the body won’t reach to the point of exhaustion where it requires days of lying in bed. Individuals are advised to take time for their mindful rest every day to avoid needing a long time for bed rotting.

Regular engagement in exercise for physical health is important for additional health benefits. It also counteracts the side effects of bed rotting and helps in quick bounce towards a productive work life.

Complete isolation is a step one towards a set of both mental and physical health conditions. Let the people outside indirectly navigate a few things for you, that includes taking care of the body and picking the right outfit for the office dinner! Feeling a sense of social pressure is relatable to many but isolating oneself from the fear of facing the outside world is not the solution. Individuals seeking a good mental health must make time for a lot of outings and some of bed-rottings to outshine in the work field.

People Also Ask

What are some alternative ways to practice self-care instead of bed rotting?

Self-care practices include meditation, yoga, and spending quality time in nature. These practices provide relaxation to the physical and mental health along with improving the mood. Meeting up with friends and loved ones, picking up a hobby and engaging in arts and crafts are also some of the self-care ways instead of resting excessively in bed.

What are some useful tips to engage in bed rotting responsibly?

Self-discipline saves many problems, if worked on. To engage in bed rotting responsibly, one must be adherent to their principles and boundaries. This includes setting the time limit for bed rest (according to the requirement and keeping the future goals in mind), maintaining a routine that is balanced for both rest and activity, engaging in exercise to bounce back from the bed rotting sessions and socializing with the social circle often.  

Conclusion:

Bed Rotting means lying in bed for many hours of the day and do nothing, not even worrying. It is a social media trend that aim to encourage self-care among the workaholic individuals of the fast-paced world. While the motive behind bed rotting is self-care, it often leads to health implications such as social isolation, procrastination, gaining excess weight and mood disorders. It is important to engage in bed rotting but responsibly by staying equally fit and active.