Praise for Working from Bed
If my bed is the most comfortable place in the house, why wouldn’t I work there?
So, I was having a terrible time trying to work. I would wiggle and fidget. I’d get up every 5–10 minutes to pace, or pee, or get a drink, or water the plant I forgot (which is what I am going to do right now). I blamed it on my broken brain and inability to meditate.
At the same time, I kept walking in on my teenager in bed with her laptop. I would chase them out of the room to the dining room table to work. In case you were wondering, work for a homeschooled fourteen-year-old is learning and creating.
Because of the chronic pain in my legs and feet, I kept finding myself working in bed. I would try to hide it from my daughter. I was such a hypocrite. Then I started noticing that I worked for more extended periods when I worked from bed.
But isn’t “working” in bed for sloppy losers?
Well, it’s complicated.
Lounging is natural.
In grade school we were taught to sit up straight, feet flat on the ground, unless you want to be a lazy slob and eventually a knarled up old person. Just as we are conditioned to sit up straight in school, we learn to dress like professionals and starch our collars. This is how we showed we were civilized; we become uncomfortable.
At my school desk or in a church pew, I always had my long legs spidered into ever-changing positions. One of my favorites was sort of like a half-lotus, my non-lotus leg stretched out into the aisle. I wasn’t very civilized, lest refined.
Chairs, while being in use for 5000 years, are still a pretty new invention, considering that we’ve been here for 300,000 years, our ancestors for millions. We humans haven’t used chairs for the vast majority of our existence. People that live on the fringes of our precarious form of modernity don’t sit around in chairs too often.
Squatting is the most natural human sitting position, and it’s comparable to the way most animals, such as kittens, sit. In fact, squatting is actually good for us and has the potential to reverse some of the damage chairs do to our bodies.
The second most common chair-free sitting position is cross-legged.
And what do the rest of the animal kingdom do when they aren’t working or playing? They lounge. They stretch out. They curl up. They stretch while they lie around (one of my favorite things to do). We love to lounge. That’s why we buy so many pillows.
Lounging while working is fun. Then I can use all the energy I would have used to sit up all day on a good hike or a day kayaking.
We’re Trapped.
It’s a lot easier to get up and bounce around if you’re seated at a high table than it is to extract oneself from an extremely comfy spot beneath a laptop, a bed desk, and/or my comforter and kitty. I don’t fidget in bed (well, not as much). It’s much more difficult to get up from knee height than it is from butt height.
People have told me they can’t imagine how I could be comfortable in bed with a computer, documents, and all your other office supplies, but once you have decided to work in bed, you have to prepare — more on that in a later article.
It’s Rebellious
I wouldn’t be me if I weren’t rebellious. It’s my nature. Of course, certain life events certainly galvanized my rebellious streak. My kind of rebellion isn’t the loud, challenging type. It’s more that I do what I want or think is right, even if it’s socially frowned upon because society is jacked up. And it isn’t jacked up because people aren’t playing by the rules.
I’m not impressed with our modern rendering of hyper-productivity and professionalism. The world is burning and you’re spending your life energy worrying if your creases are crisp enough on your slacks. I want my legacy to be a better world, even if it’s only a little bit.
Some people think they’ll get tired and go to sleep if they get in bed. That’s the effect of all the sleep training our parents did. Break the habit. For others, being at home is too distracting. Some people are dependant on structure and discipline. We can feel sorry for them. They want their workspace to look like a grown-up version of a classroom.
When I’m in bed, I can stretch out in any direction my body wants. I use my bolster, pillows, and a thick comforter to prop myself in all sorts of yummy positions. All points of contact are soft and supportive.
When I was new to chronic pain, I stopped getting things done. I was either in bed pretending to be sleeping, or hopping around the house from thing to thing, usually unable to sit for even 15 minutes to work. I thought it was ADD or depression, but eventually realized it was mostly just pain.
Recurring pain is distracting. It’s hard to sit still when you hurt.
Permaculture principle #1
In case you didn’t notice, the word permaculture is in my description. I’m not going to dive into it now (that’s another article), but permaculture, in a general sense, is a form of systems thinking based on ecological systems, i.e., systems of Mother Nature.
Permaculture Principle #1 is “observe and interact.” In observing nature and its systems, we take different perspectives to help ourselves understand what is going on within and between elements in the system. Being observant and responding to what we see is one way to move towards a more ethical and sustainable way of life. What do my body’s natural rhythms, its annoying habits, tell me? Listen to your body and respond. In a world of eternal capitalist production and growth, self-care is an act of rebellion. And I’m not talking about massages and pedicures.
“Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.” -Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider.
It’s true that even in bed, my creativity bursts tend to be short, but they get longer every day. We’ve made progress in my workflow.
Sure, I also work at a table, sitting on a chair. In my bedroom, I have a desk and a yoga ball. And I have a bed.
I’ve been civilized enough. It’s over-rated.
There is nothing about working in bed that will harm you any more than working at a desk will. When my legs and feet are sore and my arthritis is acting up, I like tucking my legs under a toasty warm and cozy comforter. My legs feel cared for.
It shouldn’t take chronic pain to keep someone from trying out working in bed. Maybe you’ve had the urge to work in bed, but you resist because it’s unprofessional or because you’ll turn into a lazy slob. Take a day off worrying about what society thinks. Throw caution to the wind and break out of a mindset.
Try something fresh and new; work in bed.
