The hurkle-durkle is TikTok’s latest trend. Is it bad for your health?
This viral social media trend with a quirky name is similar to bed-rotting, but don't confuse the two.
(Nexstar) – Move over bed rotting, there’s a new relaxation trend taking over TikTok that you probably already do after waking up – and its name is quite fun to say.
It’s called the hurkle-durkle, an old Scottish term that means to lie in bed “when one should be up and about,” according to the Scotsman.
While the word has been around for centuries, social media users have recently made countless videos about it, including singer and actress Kira Kosarin (most known for her role in the Nickelodeon series "The Thundermans").
“Just thought you guys should know that the Scottish have a word for laying in bed after it’s time to get up, and it’s called hurkle-durkling,” Kosarin said in a TikTok video that has garnered more than 3.9 million views since January.
“I do be hurkling and I do be durkling, and once I’ve hurkled my last durkle in a given morning, I will get up. But I’m a big fan of a hurkle-durkle,” she continued.
This The trend is similar to another term that went viral on TikTok and subsequently landed in the dictionary earlier this year: bed rotting. Dictionary.com defines bed rotting as “the practice of spending many hours in bed during the day, often with snacks or an electronic device, as a voluntary retreat from activity or stress.”
Unlike bed rotting, however, hurkle-durkling is typically reserved for the morning or weekend and doesn’t last for an extended period of time. Plus, bed rotting is often linked to burnout recovery, while hurkle-durkling is more for leisure.
Videos posted to social media show people hurkle-durkling about in different ways, from reading books to drinking tea to browsing the web or simply relaxing under the covers.
Marisha Mathis, a licensed clinical social worker in Raleigh, North Carolina, told the Huffington Post she thinks more people should "embrace" this trend, since it could be a form of self-care.
"It’s antithetical to the hustle culture we’re often inundated with that focuses on maximizing every moment of the day,” Mathis said. “However, sometimes prioritizing rest and having a slower start to the day is the best way to optimize your time and mental health.”
Though seemingly harmless, you should still be mindful of how often you lounge in bed, according to sleep experts.
When lounging in bed can become a problem
Keith Hengen, an assistant professor of neuroscience for Washington University’s Department of Biology, explained that our brains are association machines.
For example, we often associate the kitchen with food. So, you may start to feel a bit hungry when you walk into that part of the house, Hengen told Nexstar.
"If you start to associate scrolling through TikTok on your phone for a couple of hours before you fall asleep, it’s going to be harder and harder and harder to sleep in that bed because you’ve formed an association neurologically with a non-sleep behavior," he said.
The same would apply if you’re doing these activities after waking up.
Dr. Oscar Schwartz, a pulmonologist and sleep medicine specialist at BJC Medical Group in St. Louis, agreed that excessive lounging can "be disruptive to good quality sleep."
"If you look at people who are in bed not sleeping for long periods of time, or lounging, they tend to have a harder time falling asleep during their normal sleep period as well as staying asleep," Schwartz said. "It tends to develop into what some refer to as polyphasic sleep."
According to an article published in the National Library of Medicine, polyphasic sleep is "the practice of distributing multiple short sleep episodes across the 24-hour day rather than having one major and possibly a minor sleep episode [like a nap] each day."
"These individuals will sleep for four hours and be up for two and then they’ll sleep for an hour and be up for four," Schwartz said of polyphasic sleepers.
Tips for good sleep
If you find that too much hurkle-durkling or bed-rotting has started to disrupt your sleep cycle, there are a few tips you can follow to get a good night's rest.
Hengen said he uses blackout curtains and a white noise machine to help him fall asleep, and he keeps his mobile devices out of bed.
"I call it putting my landing gear down, like I try not to bring a screen upstairs," he said. "I try to really get mellow so that when I get in bed, it’s close to kind of a light switch in my brain -- because every single problem you can have physiologically speaking, health wise, is made worse by disrupted sleep."
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also recommends exercising during the day, going to bed at the same time each night and avoiding large meals before bedtime to improve sleep quality.