we're often told to do more whether it's fitting in a five to nine a.m routine before our work day
or stacking our habits to be even more healthy but over the past few years I've tried hard to
do less to fight the urge of busyness to spend more time in bed read books and try to empty
my calendar I had a huge burnout growing anxiety and was always tired so when I came across the new
tick tock Trend bed rotting it seemed perfect so I said so it's actually perfect then rotting is when
you do literally nothing but laying in bed it's at the end of optimisation it's anti-productivity
because you are wasting away under a blanket and the nothingness is your best life and what
I didn't expect was this huge backlash is it actually self-care it's not healthy and that
one behavioural scientist in this headline yeah that's me I've never been so popular for talking
about doing nothing so I'm here to just at the record straight Tick Tock Trends are far from
perfect and in this case nothing new we'll get to that but I am sick of the rest shining there can
be enough side to physical and mental downtime to rest but as always the science is nuanced
so here is your research-backed guide on how to embrace nothingness to live your best life and
by watching this video you've already begun a big thanks to my patrons for supporting the channel
what I want you to take away from this video is that it's okay to do nothing and you deserve
to rest these are both straightforward Concepts but they can be hard to fit into our overactive
brains so here's some evidence to help back when Neuroscience was in its big coat and bowler hat
era it was believed that when the brain wasn't engaged in a task it was just idle checked out and
kind of Switched Off then the German psychiatrist Hans Berger developed the EEG what now looks like
a fancy cap of electrodes and he recorded the first brain waves the bowler had Bros thought
he was crazy and were overwhelmingly skeptical but he showed that the brain was active all the time
in different patterns of electrical activity even when people were resting or sleeping fast forward
to today and we know that this neural activity during periods of rest can be really useful the
moment you're not focused on a task when the brain is at rest and becomes disengaged you
activate a group of different brain regions called the default mode Network it's active
during passive moments you may think there's not much going on but your brain is always busy and
during idle time much of the brain continues to work as you think to yourself you visualise the
past and you imagine the future your mind wanders and new ideas spontaneously emerge so the act of
letting your mind rest is essential for problem solving and being creative the because our brains
are always active it's impossible to reach a state of pure nothingness what it means to do nothing is
somewhat philosophical and an enduring pursuit in the late 1800s Oscar Wilde wrote to do nothing at
all is the most difficult thing in the world and this is still true we live in a world obsessed
with hustle culture optimisation and productivity where there's a popular narrative that a 5 a.m
alarm clock is the key to professional success where 76 of employers experience burnout yet
doing nothing is somehow lazy younger Generations are often painted as lazy yet research shows they
work more and have less unstructured leisure time compared to those in previous decades so I'm here
to say that when you have unstructured time you don't have to fill it with productive activities
it is okay to strive for nothingness and nothing is open to subjective interpretation it could be
watching a video on YouTube listening to music or taking a nap and these kinds of mental breaks can
help you manage stress the ways that we manage our stress can be really personal whether it's
watching video games or ASMR and researchers actually looked into the potential of ASMR for
Stress Management in one study people were given a stressful mental task while they had their brain
waves measured with it you guessed it EEG then they were given a choice of ASMR soundtracks
and another different stressful task when they were solving this task with ASMR their brainwave
activity was the same as when they were previously resting researchers concluded that ASMR has the
power to reduce mental stress research has also found that exposure to relaxing music can reduce
both subjective and physical signs of stress like heart rate blood pressure and hormone levels when
people are given a stressful task and there are other physical relaxation techniques like
progressive muscle relaxation where you tense and release your muscles while lying down that
can reduce anxiety and stress it's thought that reducing muscle tension reduces activation of
other physiological systems involved in the stress response these are just some relaxing activities
that have been studied scientifically what you find relaxing and your downtime is as personal
as your Starbucks order maybe even write in the comments what doing nothing looks like for you
just trying to keep the algorithm happy and it's important to remember this because what might be
relaxing for you might not be for someone else for starters for people with ADHD it can be really
hard to relax and in that case it might be better to do something more structured like yoga class or
going on a nature walk rather than rotting away in bed all day accompanied by your darkest thoughts
physical idleness like bed rotting can be a good self-care Trend but it can also be a symptom of
depression I asked my friend Dr R Lee about this so anything that helps you to rest is probably
a good thing because we have so much of this like toxic hustle consumerist self-care crap out there
Dr Ali is a clinical psychologist you definitely should follow him and he said this can be a very
helpful thing for some and for others it could be a symptom of depression or it could trigger a
depressive episode both of those things are true mental health is complicated it's a little bit
different for everyone so what should you watch out for If You're vulnerable for depression or if
you have some of the other signs of depression lower energy problems with with sleep changes
in appetite and the big one you're no longer really enjoying things the way you used to
then this probably is not a good thing for you to do always do what's best for you right rest
and downtime isn't about disrupting the balance of your health something that can help explain is
the theory behind a behavioural activation which is a type of therapy that treats depression so
it's a common misconception that you need to be productive and doing things to not be depressed
but according to behavioural activation you need to find a balance between activities that are
important and pleasurable so if you can free up time from obligations and find a downtime
activity that you enjoy it can help you achieve that balance whatever nothingness looks like for
you one of the most important things is just to remember that doing nothing is okay being
kind and understanding towards yourself is super important promoting self-compassion can lead to
improved mental health and better physical health and Sleep Quality I will constantly Rave about
self-compassion research because I think it's hugely underrated in the case of Sleep Quality
experimental Studies have found that either writing self-compassion prompts or doing love
and kindness meditation increases Sleep Quality compared to control groups even though this
increase phrases were small I think it's pretty cool that working to be more compassionate towards
yourself can have these immediate effects on your sleep and other areas of Health a lot of people
struggle with resting and doing less it's a common experience I feel so lazy right now
it can be hard to do nothing it is after all the most difficult thing in the world especially when
your brain is always doing something even if you don't realize it at first using more
downtime to rest and recuperate is certainly a joy to try and a noble pursuit to continue to
work towards whatever rest looks like for you I think a lot about ancestral self-care like what
did our ancestors do before these things were around and before there was this whole industry
of self-care we rested we spent time together we ate we drank and we nourished each other
that was what self-care was it was about taking care of your mind your body making sure you have
nourishment connecting to each other and community and supporting each other like that is self-care