The Surprising Benefits of Doing Nothing | 6 Minute English
Explore the concept of doing nothing and its benefits in this intriguing 6 Minute English episode. Discover why animals spend most of their time in idleness and how it can be beneficial in nature and for humans.
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Video Transcript
Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I'm Beth.
And I'm Neil. Phew! I've spent a day in meetings, then shopping, then collecting the kids from
school. I'm exhausted, Beth. What have you been doing today?
Oh, not much. Just sitting around, doing nothing, relaxing and kicking back.
Lucky you. Don't you have any work to do?
It may not look it, Neil, but I'm actually as busy as a bee.
If you've seen nature documentaries about worker bees
flying from flower to flower, you probably think
animals are always on the move.
But the surprising truth is, away from the cameras,
most animals spend most of their time
doing absolutely nothing at all.
In the natural world, where finding food and shelter
is hard work, why have some animals evolved to do nothing?
And if it's good enough for animals,
would being lazy work for humans too?
That's what we'll be discussing in this
programme and, as usual, we'll be learning
some useful new vocabulary as well.
But first, let me work up the energy to
ask you a question, Neil.
Of course, some animals have a reputation
for lounging about. Lions, for example,
can sleep up to 20 hours a day.
But what is the slowest moving animal on
earth? Is it... a. The giant tortoise, b. The three-toed
sloth, or c. The koala?
Well, I think it's the three-toed sloth.
OK, Neil. I'll reveal the correct answer
at the end of the programme. Now, it's no
surprise that lazy lions love relaxing,
but even animals with reputations for
being busy spend time doing nothing.
thing. Look carefully into an ant's nest and you'll
and you'll see around half of them just sitting there motionless.
Here's Professor Dan Charbonneau, an expert in insect behaviour,
discussing the lazy rock ant with Emily Knight,
presenter of BBC Radio 4 programme Nature Bang.
Dan's research has focused on ant colonies,
a species called Temnothorax regartilis, or the rock ant.
I think ants are sort of a symbol of like industriousness,
you know, they have this whole tiny little society going on
that's kind of similar to ours.
some idealised version of what humans might be,
if we could only pull it together and all work
together we could be as industrious as the ants.
But then when you look at it, roughly about
half the colony is inactive at any given time.
We think ants are industrious or hard-working.
Groups of ants, called colonies, seem tiny,
