Where Do You Stand on Bedrotting—Agree It’s Great or Bad?
The term is receiving some buzz thanks to social media, but what do people in the mental health field think of it?
Weekends are the usual time when people either catch up on all the chores they’ve neglected during the week or, according to a new craze, choose to engage in bedrotting (with 305 million views on TikTok)—remaining in bed all day or for two days, reading or binge-watching films or TV. Is it a new form of self-care, a bout of dismissiveness of life, or is it brought on by anxiety or depression? Maybe a bit of all these, but little research exists because it is so recent.
Is it “kid culture,” aka Gen Z, or a response to a Bizarro World spiraling out of the norm where stress mandates a new means to combat the pall of mental illness that hangs over all of us? Must it be viewed as unacceptable, or can we see some good coming out of it?
Is it OK to experience JOMO, the joy of missing out? Isn’t it OK to feel contentment by doing nothing but relaxing and enjoying some activity? People engage in knitting all the time, and do we say they are hyperactive? Do we pathologize it? Yes, some people, especially young individuals, might do bedrotting to excess, and, under those circumstances, it might show concern for how they’re doing.
