bed rotting

Bed rotting means spending hours in bed during the day on purpose, usually with snacks, a phone or a laptop, as a way to rest or hide from the world for a while.

What bed rotting means

Dictionary.com defines it as staying in bed for long periods of the day as a voluntary retreat from activity or stress. The “rotting” is a joke: you’re not sleeping, you’re just lying there, scrolling, watching shows and refusing to be productive. People present it as self-care, a guilt-free reset after a hard week.

As Fast Company pointed out when the trend took off, the behavior isn’t new. What’s new is the name, and the idea of filming yourself doing it.

Examples

• “Worked six days straight. Today is for bed rotting.”
• “Bed rotting with a face mask and three seasons of a show I’ve already seen.”
• “I need a weekend of pure bed rotting.”

Where it came from

No one is credited with the phrase. It caught on among Gen Z on TikTok in 2023, and Fast Company reported more than 305 million views on the hashtag by the end of May that year. Dictionary.com added it in February 2024, dating the current sense to 2023. An American Academy of Sleep Medicine survey of about 2,000 US adults in 2024 found that 24% of Gen Z respondents had tried it.

Is bed rotting bad for you?

Experts are split, and there isn’t research on the trend itself. Psychiatrist Jessica Gold told CNN that an occasional day in bed is fine if you understand why you’re doing it, but that more than a day or two can be a warning sign, and that it can be linked to depression and anxiety. Sleep researcher Kelly Glazer Baron told CNN it runs against sleep science, which recommends keeping your bed for sleep. A spokesperson for the sleep academy warned it may make sleep problems worse.

If “bed rotting” has stopped feeling like a choice and you’re struggling to get up most days, it’s worth talking to a doctor or someone you trust.

Related terms

• Goblin mode: unapologetically lazy and messy.
• Doomscrolling: endlessly scrolling bad news.
• Soft life: a calm, low-stress way of living.
• Girl dinner: a snack plate instead of cooking.

See more terms like this in our TikTok slang guide.