Is Bed Rotting Bad For You?

The Basics

Now, there are no real rules to bed rotting, you can rot on the couch, in bed, alone, with a phalanx of furry friends, and be as occupied or stagnant as you want. Sometimes bed rotting involves staring into the void until it stares back, sometimes it involves juggling three different screens (we like laptop, kindle, phone) an elaborate skincare routine, and snacks.

Bed rotting involves saying “not today” and giving yourself permission to take the day off. Whether it’s grief about the election results, a chronic pain flair, or just a serious case of the morbs, bed rotting means pressing pause on all but the most essential responsibilities.

The Downsides

Detractors of bed rotting warn that decomposing in bed runs the risk of taking a bad mood and making it worse, and we would be remis if we didn’t review the potential risks:

Disrupted sleep

Bed rotting could potentially disrupt your sleep in two ways. If you get enough rest, your body might not be particularly sleepy when your bedtime rolls around. This can start a downward spiral of staying up later, and sleeping in, which could be a problem if you or your family are on a traditional business hours schedule, and of course, you risk your very life if this means feeding your cats breakfast 20 minutes later than usual. 

Some people also find that spending too much time in their bedroom not sleeping creates confusion. If your brain gets too used to being in bed and being awake, this might make it harder to fall asleep when you want to fall asleep.

Feeling ashamed of being unproductive

In the hellscape that is late state capitalism, productivity has been weaponized to such an extent that taking a break is characterized as “lazy” or “weak willed”. By definition, bed rotting means taking a break from your responsibilities list which can sometimes feel like an act of rebellion. If your inner monologue is already prone to perfectionism and self-criticism you might notice a drift in your thoughts towards all the things you “should” be doing, which defeats the point of taking a nice long rest. 

Doom scrolling

For some people, unfettered access to media is a risky thing. Think of what happened when your parents got on Facebook, do you want that for yourself? Probably not. Some of this depends on how friendly the content your social media algorithm pushes on you is, if you’re seeing a steady diet stream of pop culture analysis, booktok recommendations, and shelter animals who learned to love again after getting adopted, maybe this is less of a risk. But if your feed leans towards hardboiled reporting on all of the ways in which our world is currently on fire? That might make you feel worse.   

The Upsides

This is not an unbiased article, at The Pomegranate Institute, we’re big fans of a bed rot, we think the downsides can be mitigate with minor tweaks, and the upsides of having a real rest are worth celebrating. Here are a few of our favorite reasons to rot:  

Be a Goose

No one will ever be as right as the iconic Mary Oliver when she said: “You do not have to be good. / You do not have to walk on your knees / for a hundred miles / through the desert repenting. / You only have to let the soft animal of your body / love what it loves.” (Oliver, 1986).

Slowing Down

In a hustle culture world, slowing down is something worth practicing. You don’t have to be a millennial with a tumblr inspired arrow tattoo (an arrow can only be shot by pulling backwards and letting go! So profound.) to see the value in taking a minute for yourself.

How to Make the Most of It

We think bed rotting can be enhanced by adding a sprinkling of conscious activities, frankly, if we stare too long into the void our contacts start to dry out! Here are some of our favorites:

Add a smidge of movement

We’re not suggesting you run a 5k on the same day you’re planning to bed rot, but there’s lots of movement exercises you can do from the comfort of your own bed. Some of our favorites include: legs up the wall (against your headboard if you have one), legs on the chair pose, happy baby pose, and a variation of dragon pose where you rest your forearms on your bed as you bend forward.

You could also try some toe yoga, dry brushing, or using a massage gun to work on anything that feels tight or stiff in your body.

Skincare

Indoor time is a great time to do the more labor-intensive aspects of your skincare. You can get as fancy or stripped down as you want. Maybe today is the day you finally try those collagen sheet masks that are all over your for you page or stick with adding the classic and utterly cost-effective CeraVe moisturizing cream to any slightly dry spots. If you’re looking to do a deep dive into skincare, you could check out: Dr. Michelle Wong, Javon Ford, or Alexis Androulakis and Dr. Christina Basias Androulakis

Give your snack a hat

If you’re going to snack, try give your snack a hat! This is a catchy way of reminding you to add something with protein to your snack. We don’t snack shame here! And we don’t believe it’s particularly productive to tell people to snack less. Instead, try adding something nutritionally dense to your snack. This might mean adding a scoop of protein powder to your iced coffee, having some Parmigiano Reggiano (which has a deceptively large amount of protein per ounce) with your chocolate, or using your potato chips to scoop some tuna salad.

Think about your lights

We love a three-screen day as much as the next girl, but some people find the blue light really disrupts their ability to get a good night sleep. To mitigate the impact, you could try getting “10 before 10”, ten minutes of sunlight before 10 AM, a strategy popularized by neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman. You could try blue light blocking glasses or filters on your devices, or try adding some red light in your room when its time to wind down. We love the red light attachment on our theraface pro and we always turn this red lamp on when we’re winding down for the night.

Indulge

If bed rotting feels decadent to you, really lean into it. Maybe today’s the day you finally try caviar (we have a soft spot for Imperia’s limited edition amur caviar), or you eat macarons instead of cake, or get the really really good chocolate (shout out to the Munsen’s chocolate milk chocolate fudge truffle). If this feels hard and immediately gives you a case of the guilt ferrets, try asking how you would spoil a loved one who’s been going through a hard time lately, because you are your own dear loved one!

Learn something new

Can you scroll with a little bit of purpose and learn a new fun fact about the world around you? If Mr. Weasley were bed rotting, he would finally get the chance to learn how airplanes stay up. Maybe this silly little fact leads to your next hyper fixation, or maybe it’s just an opportunity to add to your collection of facts you can rattle off about the wives of King Henry VIII. 

Connect with all your creatures

The reel I saw most often when researching bed rotting was the one that goes “next to every girl rotting in bed is her cat (or dog) rotting with her”. If you have pets, bed rotting could be a great opportunity to connect with them and give them their favorite thing in the world, your attention. I have a very skittish rescue cat (Baklava) who is terrified of me at least some of the time, but if I’m under the covers, she has decided I’m very unlikely to eat her, and she gets very brave and snuggly real quick. In a world where we must, tragically, be separated from our animals a lot of the time, bed rotting might just be a way to give your pet their favorite day (don't rot in bed for you, do it for Baklava!).  

A solo sesh

As a sex therapist, I would be remis if we didn’t mention the opportunity to get a little frisky during your time in bed. Whether your solo sesh time is a chance to practice self-love, try something new (check out this list for a recap of 2024’s best toys), or see how many orgasms you can have in a 24-hour period, the health benefits are too many to count or to fit into this article. 

We’re ending this article with a (solo) bang, hopefully it gives you some things to try the next time you’re in the mood for a hurkle-durkle. And if you want to talk about ways of incorporating meaningful rest in your life, reach out! We love talking about pop-culture inspired self-care!