Scrolling on my phone in bed—as I’m wont to do on weekends (or really anytime I’m not sitting upright)—a curious post made me stop short. “Bed rotting” it read, my depraved brain immediately flashing visuals of necrophilia and coprophilia. “Ew,” I groaned audibly, almost flinging away my phone in disgust, until I read the latter half of the sentence: “…is the latest type of self-care for Gen Z.” Granted, Gen Zers have a proclivity for the absurd—like consuming laundry detergent or getting broccoli haircuts—but I actually have faith that they draw the road far before coitus with corpses and eating poop for pleasure.

I actually have a rigid weekend routine that begins every Friday evening as soon as I clock out of labor: I eat dinner at home at around 9PM, game with my partner until midnight after which start a recent TV show, which I watch until 4AM. I get up between 12PM and 2PM on Saturday, resume watching the show I had began the previous night, eat lunch in bed at 4PM and go down for a nap at 5PM. Upon waking up at 7PM, I normally start framing legitimate excuses to opt out of plans that I enthusiastically made throughout the week (there’s a running joke amongst my friends about my ovulation cycle because I exploit “period cramps” as an excuse almost every week). After successfully clearing my schedule, I eat dinner in bed by 9PM and repeat the game-until-12-watch-tv-until-4 cycle. On Monday, I return to work a little bit disgusted with myself for having whiled away my precious holidays, but adequately rejuvenated to tackle the week to return. I—and plenty of others who know me well—call it my “weekend coma”. Seems, Gen Z calls it like they see it: bed rotting. A Gen Z trend that this millennial is simply too completely happy to co-opt.

So what does rotting in bed entail? Simply put, it involves intentionally spending prolonged periods of time in bed doing nothing, very much akin to how you’d convalesce from a fever. First-time bed rotters is likely to be inclined to do an elaborate skincare routine (strictly without leaving the bed, it goes without saying), but seasoned pros will know that every one you have to rot in bed is a bed and yourself—a very good WiFi connection and a comfortable duvet are only added bonuses.

I clearly remember the primary time I bed rotted. I used to be 18, had just broken up with my first boyfriend and was obviously convinced that I used to be going to die of heartbreak. I cried and cried… after which I cried myself to sleep. I dreamt blank dreams, occasionally dotted with abstract swirls of color—like a Windows screensaver (sorry Gen Z, you won’t get this reference). Once I woke up 10 hours later, I used to be dazed but it surely took some time for me to keep in mind that my boyfriend’s parting words to me were “you’re too clingy.” Minutes later, I used to be reeling from the sudden onslaught of memories and felt like I used to be experiencing the ultimate moments of my relationship all once again. I longed for the sweet escape of sleep (aren’t teenagers just comedically dramatic?). Throughout the next few days, I slept like my life trusted it, waking up only to eat and excrete. One week later, I emerged resolute and revitalised, determined that I wasn’t going to permit a boy to upend my life like this. To at the present time, I credit that sweet sopor for snapping me out of my adolescent melancholy. It was almost just like the Neuralyzer from Men in Black had wiped my memory clean (sorry Gen Z, one other reference you won’t get), empowering me to choose up the pieces and move on.

Those that hadn’t discovered the thrill of bed rotting were surely introduced to it in some form throughout the pandemic. In 2020, when people became sequestered indoors, there was only a lot Dalgona coffee and banana bread we could make or Netflix we could watch before tiring of it. As working from home became a reality for the foreseeable future, afternoon naps became a nice byproduct and we began sleeping longer hours. People reported getting more total sleep throughout the pandemic, regardless that the standard of sleep suffered (but that’s a subject for one more time). Day after day, watching the waves crash against the shore from my seaside apartment and the birds congregating for his or her sunset murmurations, concurrently reading reports of nature healing within the absence of human intervention and families running from pillar to post searching for oxygen tanks, my brain lulled itself into inertia as an act of self-preservation. My privilege to make use of sleep as a type of escapism was aptly reflected in Ottessa Moshfegh’s book, My Yr of Rest and Leisure, which was presciently published in 2018. “Sleep felt productive,” thinks the unnamed protagonist as she strives to slide right into a year-long slumber. “Something was getting sorted out. I knew in my heart that after I’d slept enough, I’d be okay. I’d be renewed, reborn. I could be an entire recent person, every one in every of my cells regenerated enough times that the old cells were just distant, foggy memories.”

From time to time, as I prepare for my weekend snooze, my partner or parents will take a look at me with simmering disapproval, their expressions clearly gifting away what they dare not say aloud. The words “you’re sleeping away your prime years” attempt to penetrate the fortress of froth pillow I’ve built around my head, but they’re expertly deflected. I actually have a case to make here: my writing job requires me to talk to people (each over Zoom and in person) and show up at events throughout the week. Making small talk is an occupational hazard I actually have come to simply accept fairly grudgingly. So after I slip into my two-day coma, I believe of it as a radical rise up against the capitalist structures that ask that we exit and spend money on food and garments throughout the weekend as a way to justify what we do throughout the week. Once I watch Netflix or read in bed for hours on end, I could also be rooted to my bed but I travel inward into faraway lands of courageous wizards, intrepid hobbits, Regency Era monarchs and dead photographers trying to resolve the mystery of their very own deaths (I’m currently reading the 2022 Booker Prize-winning novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida). Let’s just say that watching Farmer George say “I’m good with buttons” actually nourished my soul loads greater than an evening out in town ever has.

That’s to not say that bed rotting doesn’t include valid criticism. Health professionals have identified that prolonged spells of inactivity and excessive bed rest can result in compromised cardiovascular health, muscle stiffness and inadequate REM sleep. But with the world rushing towards post-Covid normalcy with dizzying speed and corporations racing to make up for lost time, perhaps giving into this torpor now and again has its advantages. I simply consider it as an agreement with my body that hustles incredibly for five days in return for 2 days of rest.

Because the weekend approaches, Moshfegh’s lines once more echo in my ears: “Soon, I’d be home again. Soon, God willing, I’d be asleep.” Unnecessary to say, I will be making my bed, and I will be lying in it.

Also read:

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