[imagesource:flickr/traceyemin]

American marketing professor Scott Galloway just said that people should “never be home” except to sleep for seven hours.

Dear heavens, sir, don’t most of us need eight to 10 hours of sleep a night, at least, to be able to function the next day? Anything less than that is the making of madness.

Besides his ludicrous sleep prescription, Galloway reckons we’re all supposed to spend most of our time away from home to be successful, professionally and romantically. Does this guy know how to chill? Furthermore, does this guy know that chilling is part of a healthy, well-rounded life?

Lucky for us, some smart youngsters have introduced the exact opposite of what this Boomer thinks is the right way to be in this day and age. Call them Gen Z TikTokers, but really everyone is hopping onto the new wellness trend of ‘bed rotting’.

I know it sounds hella savoury, but you’ll be glad to know this idea has nothing to do with mouldy mattresses, potential bed bugs, and broken bed bases. Rather, it’s a “movement” – and not just the kind your bed might make if it has actually started to rot.

Yahoo! Lifestyle defines the bed rotting movement of 2023 as the latest “wellness” trend, which involves young people spending huge chunks of the day in bed, basically doing whatever they find most relaxing.

It used to simply be called a spectacularly lazy day in bed or even taking a sick day when you weren’t really sick (come on, we’ve all chucked a sickie), but now bed rotting is a part-time gig. It may not pay very handsomely but it does include a mega binge watch, scrolling social media, eating up a storm (often via home delivery) or even partaking in skincare routines.

It’s the kind of anti-productivity, anti-optimisation, anti-hustle, anti-burn-out turn of the tables that we all deserve. Boomers might be used to a life of hard work and a nice retirement package to settle down with at the end years of their lives, but every other generation after them won’t get the luxury of retirement and so we have to find time to relax in the in-between moments. Balance, Galloway, balance.

With nearly 305 million views of the trend on TikTok, bed rotting might not just be a passing fad:

@braincraft In defence of #inbedrotting because it’s perfect 🛌💙 #lifehack #bedrot #bedrotting #bed #bedroomtok #sleepscientist #fyp ♬ Coastline – Hollow Coves

This trend is also not really anything new. It just has a new (not so sparkly) name. British Artist Tracey Emin was the OG bed rotter, having crafted her most iconic piece My Bed in 1998 (see the art piece in the header image), per i-D:

Following a four day bender of bed-bound boozing, she finally surfaced to see her creation for the first time, from its condoms and bloody underwear to crumpled newspapers and bedsheets.

“I got up and then fell over, and crawled to the kitchen and managed to get some tap water,” she said on the Southbank Show in 2001: “When I looked at the room I thought…it was disgusting… but then when I looked again… it became something incredibly beautiful.”

Self-care and ‘rotting’ shouldn’t really be synonymous, but these are confusing times and a good juxtaposition is a fun way to describe our current lives.

Indeed, cocooning at home is a preferable alternative to facing the outside world, where stepping out can often cost you a fortune, make you anxious or take hours for you to get from A to B.

A compromise to what Galloway said can be reached, and it looks like being “on” when you’re out and about, and taking time to just “be” when you’re in the comfort of your own home, removing yourself from the bloody brutal slog of the everyday.

Again, balance. If anyone is spending a subordinate amount of time ‘rotting’ in bed, then that is cause for concern and they should probably check in with a mental health professional.

[source:yahoo!lifestyle]