Is the tang ping trend the answer to our always-on work culture?
(Picture: Getty Images/Westend61)  As the line between work and rest blurs, our job stresses seep into our dreams, and being on the brink of burnout becomes a persistent, precarious state of being, were desperately searching for an answer to our less-than-healthy work culture. We pursue new hobbies. We put our phones in our drawers to try (and fail) to ignore the emails piling high in our inboxes in the evenings. We declare that well leave work on time and keep our weekends strictly for relaxing. But perhaps the solution has been right below our noses this whole time. Maybe, rather than trying to tackle busyness with a stack of self-care tasks, we should just lie down on the floor. Thats the concept of tang ping, a new lifestyle trend growing among young people in China. Its as simple as it sounds  tang ping translates to to lie flat  requiring that you just take a moment to lie down and do nothing. Well, thats the literal sense of the trend  but its just one part. Yes, you sometimes should just lie down and do nothing, but you can also take this approach in a more conceptual sense. The movement is an answer to Chinas harsh working culture (Picture: Getty Images/EyeEm)  Sending resums was like fishing for a needle in the ocean, a 24-year-old lab technician named Wang told AFP. Youre beaten up by society and just want a more relaxed life lying flat is not waiting to die. I still work, but just dont overstretch.  The BBC reports that the trend originated on a Chinese social media site, then spread online and became a spiritual movement  and inspiration for a lot of memes. But soon, a Douban group dedicated to tang ping was deleted, and searches for the hashtag #TangPing have been blocked on Sina Weibo. It turns out its quite controversial to rage against the system, even if youre doing that through the passive act of lying down. While were not suggesting a full rebellion in the form of putting down our tools of production and lying flat on the floor, perhaps we can take the spirit of tang ping and make it part of our lives, even just a little bit. The next time youre feeling overworked and overwhelmed, schedule in some time to have a lie down. Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.