What is bed rotting, and is it good for you? What to know about the Gen Z trend
You would be hard pressed to find someone who hasn't spent an entire day in bed resting in an attempt to recover some lost sleep.
Be it from a hangover, illness or just general exhaustion, sometimes a day in bed feels required. In the days of yore, one would have called that resting. But what's old is new again, and TikTok users rebranded this activity as "bed rotting."
It's not entirely clear where this trend started, but the hashtags "bed rot" and "bed rotting" on TikTok have a total of 32.9 million posts as of Sept. 20.
Is it OK to ... bed rot? Are they signs of a bigger health issue? And are there healthier ways to do bed rotting? TODAY talked to the experts to find out.
What is bed rotting?
Bed rotting is a self-care trend that spread on TikTok. The term means to spend basically the entire day or even weekend in bed, doing everything from napping and doom-scrolling to watching TV and eating.
The idea is that, to help cope with tiredness or burnout, spending a day or two under the covers will offset some of the exhaustion.
Is bed rotting healthy?
Bed rotting can be a healthy self-care practice if you keep a few things in mind to make sure you're doing it in a healthy way. First off, understand why you're bed rotting, and be aware of how long you're doing it and how frequently.
"It can be OK to have a day or so where you just take a break and ... stay in bed — I do that myself on occasion," Dr. Jen Caudle, a family medicine physician and associate professor at Rowan University, tells TODAY.com. "I think it can be a problem, though, if we are doing that to avoid things," especially if you have mental illness.
"What I think of bed rotting is it's like a self-care moment," she says, adding that it should be "a half a day or whatever. It's a moment."
Your bed rotting habit may be in unhealthy territory if you're staying in bed for much longer than a weekend here and there, or if you're doing it more and more often.
"So if you find yourself ... bed rotting to avoid situations, to avoid feelings ... that's a problem, as well," she says. "If it seems that there may be a problem, there just might be."
Bed rotting and mental health
While bed rotting can be a safe way to practice self-care, it can reveal also warning signs of mental health problems, Lynn Bufka, Ph.D., associate executive director for practice research and policy at the American Psychological Association, tells TODAY.com.
"For somebody who is depressed, bed rotting sounds like a way of potentially withdrawing from others, not having social connections," she says, adding that depression screening asks if symptoms have lasted for two weeks or more.
As for people who have anxiety, Bufka says bed rotting might feel good in the short term, but it's not a good long-term coping strategy because it means you're just avoiding what makes you anxious.
