Should You Feel Guilty for ‘Bed Rotting?’

Image by Nenad Stojkovic via Wikimedia Commons-Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

It seems that every other week, Gen Z comes up with another name for a practice that has existed forever and tries to make the practice seem positive when it was generally considered negative or neutral before.

“Quiet quitting”=phoning it in or half-assing it at work.

“Girl dinner”=scraping together a few snacks because you don’t feel like making a meal. (Weird that it’s called ‘girl dinner,’ I’ve always felt this to be more of a guy thing to do.)

“Adulting”=living life as an adult. (Though I think Millenials may have started this one.)

“Bed rotting”=spending the whole day or several days in bed, doing nothing but eating and low-brainpower tasks like watching TV and scrolling through social media.

Bed rotting. Even the name sounds gross, like you’re decaying, zombie-like, in your bed. That said, yes, I’ve been guilty of this practice from time to time. I don’t generally spend the day in bed; as a person who struggles with insomnia, one of my coping strategies is to only use my bed for sleeping. “Couch rotting” may be the better term for what I do, but the same principle applies. However, when I say I’m guilty of this practice every now and then, the keyword is guilty. Since my husband’s and my foster son came into our lives, I don’t think I’ve zombie-ed on the couch at all but even before then, I never did it without feeling at least a little bit guilty.

Gen Z touts bed rotting as a great form of self-care. Some experts agree. I’m not certain I disagree myself; it’s not like I couch rot for a day and the day becomes a week. However, maybe it doesn’t become a week because I always feel at least a little guilty about it?

Guilt is a normal human emotion, and it’s not destructive if you don’t go overboard with it. Guilt over laziness shows you care about productivity; nervousness before a test shows you care about doing well, embarrassment over telling a bad joke shows you care how people perceive you. Negative emotions are useful. It’s also possible to feel a little guilty about your indulgences and still enjoy them. It might sound crazy, but I don’t think taking pride in your laziness and broadcasting it on TikTok is any healthier. It might (again, crazy, I know) make you indulge your laziness more often.

Self-esteem should be earned. It isn’t something you get to have just ‘cuz. And if you need to get validation from a bunch of TikTok commenters for your less-than-awesome habits, then I’d say your self-esteem probably isn’t that high. Try feeling bad about yourself once in awhile. You may find it makes you feel better in the long run.