It’s quite evident that we live in a society that worships hustle culture and floods us each day with carefully curated illusions of success. It’s a direct result of the internet that has enabled us to have constant access to the lives of strangers. Productivity gets placed on a pedestal, and along with this come feelings of excessive guilt during breaks and inevitable burnout when those respectable breaks are not honored by individuals or workplaces. Rest is a crucial component to productivity because it nourishes your body and mind in ways working hours on end cannot.
benefits of rest
The Mayo Clinic suggests that adults get seven or more hours of sleep each night. This number may vary slightly depending on individual needs or gender, as women typically require more sleep due to hormonal fluctuations. Making time for adequate hours of sleep will significantly improve one’s long-term health and short-term mental ability to effectively tackle the day ahead. While these statistics are well-supported and seem easy enough to comply with, a study published in Sleep Health shows that only about 15% of adults from a sample of 67,254 actually slept the recommended seven to nine hours at least five days a week. Even one day of inadequate rest can disrupt your schedule, requiring you to make up that hour the following night.
The importance of sleep is now undeniable, but what about naps or breaks throughout the day? Culturally, napping when you could be working often implies laziness or a lack of productivity, which can sometimes derail a sleep schedule. While these implications may be true, it is important to destigmatize naps because our bodies signal the need for them. If your body is lacking rest, a short nap could be a good alternative to drinking caffeine. This way, our bodies can catch up on missed sleep in small increments. General breaks that don’t involve sleeping still count as resting from work. These activities provide an outlet for shutting off our brains and letting endorphins kick in.
Is bed rotting productive?
As students, many of us take a break from homework by scrolling on our phones to “rest our brains.” For some of us, this may truly feel restful, but for those like me, it can quickly turn into a marathon of scrolling until the app itself has to warn us of our indulgences. Rest comes in many forms, some of which seem to counter productivity or may feel restful but actually strain the brain.
It is okay to scroll on our phones for allotted times, but the term “bed rotting” refers to excessive scrolling that leaves the mind and body feeling drained. The key component here is time, followed by the passive, harmful side effects of social media.
This does not mean it is entirely harmful to take scroll breaks. Mapping out short periods throughout the day to consume social media is a step towards remedying the doomscroll habit. I personally enjoy taking restorative breaks from time to time, usually in the form of yoga or stretching. These actions can require minimal physical effort and steer clear of the overstimulation often caused by screens. The American Psychological Association also recommends swapping draining tasks for less demanding ones as a form of mental rest. One example that can be both productive and calming for people is folding laundry or tidying their room with music playing.
rest AS RESISTANCE
Stigma surrounding rest is not only caused by heightened media awareness, but also by the lack of focus on rest in the workforce. Most careers that people strive for on account of fat paychecks tend to cost them valuable time in exchange for financial security. In the book Rest Is Resistance, Trisha Hersey discusses rest as a form of political and cultural resistance, a powerful disruption of capitalism and white supremacy. The book emphasizes the notion that our bodies were not made to be corporate machines, and it positions rest as a form of reclamation and self-love. Rest is a form of productivity through a rich historical and political lens.
College is the perfect time to learn how to take care of your body and set personal work boundaries that you can take with you post-grad.
challenging society
Rest is a part of our toolbox for a reason, but has somehow lost its meaning amidst the hustle and bustle of modern Western culture. The economy has been rocky in the past few years, so working hard to achieve a sustainable life is by no means undermined by rest. Instead, rest resists a society built on paying unfair wages for back-breaking work, and it uplifts the workers for all their hardships.
For busy college students, asking for breaks may not always be an option, but it is important that those of us who can have a voice advocate for a workforce that enables resting and views it as an asset rather than a burden.