6 Minute English / The benefits of doing nothing

Note: This is not a word-for-word transcript.

Hello. This is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English. I m Beth.

And I m Neil. Phew! I've spent all 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 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 the 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 will 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 twenty hours a day! But what is the slowest moving animal on Earth? Is it:a) the giant tortoiseb) the three-toed sloth orc) 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. Look carefully into an ant's nest 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, Naturebang.