Make Time For Niksen

I mean nothing. And I don't mean sit around and stare at the ceiling and make it to do list in your head and think about all the work that you have to do, or worry about anything. I mean nothing. It's not meditating. You can have thoughts going through your head, but what if they were just fantasies you I don't know, sit there and think about your the star of a I don't know music video. I'm just fans as are just look around and let thoughts come and go. But

is I'm meditating? You're just actually doing nothing. You're just chilling. I mean, I guess maybe you could read a book, as long as whatever you're doing isn't for a goal. It's not like I have to read this book for work. Am I gonna watch this movie? Because you know it's gonna inspire me to do something, you know, it just just do nothing. That's I was gonna say, what I'm challenging you to do. I hate the word challenge. I hate in the New Years when it's like yoga challenge.

That doesn't really that's not seeing what yoga is all about to me. Challenge yourself to meditate. I don't like that either. That's why I love today's guest Olga mek Ing. We talk about the art of doing nothing. You know, there's that great Seinfeld episode where I don't know, I think it's from season three or something. It was early on in the series when um Jerry Seinfeld's character Jerry gets approached by these executives and NBC and they want

him to come up with a sick come idea. And he's talking to his friend George Costanza about it, and you know, George is like, Okay, what if you run a zoo or you no, you'r blah blah blah blah blah. And one day they're just sitting at the diner talking about salsa and George is like, this is the show this and Jerry's like, what's the show And George is like this, you know, talking about Salza, you know, just nothing and Jerry's like nothing and George is like, that's it.

The your sitcom is about nothing. And Jerry's like nothing, I mean, what happens. He's like the same thing that happens in real life. You know, there's a character based on me and Elaine and Cramer and we come to your apartment sometimes we sit and talk at the diner's like nothing and Jerry goes, huh, nothing could be something. And then they go pitch it to the network and networks like well what happens? And George is like nothing, and they're like, well, something has to happen. He's like, no,

it doesn't. Oh my god. I love that episode. But that is the art of Nixon, not Nixon, like the President n I K S E. N. That is the name of Olga Meckings book, Nixon embracing the Dutch art of doing nothing. Thing. Shroout the book in English and it's going to be translated in a ton of languages. And the book came out and it sits on my

coffee table because I think it's a great reminder. It's a really fun book to flip through, but it's well, we're going to talk about it when I talk to her in this episode about really the only way to define Nixon is to talk about what it isn't and um, and there's a science behind it. It's actually really good for your brain to kind of do nothing every once in a while. It's like turning off your phone, you know,

and just letting it reset itself again. Even though great things happen when you do nothing, you don't even have to think about all the great things that are gonna happen when you're doing nothing, because it's a little too much like doing something. So I don't know, maybe this new year, while you're sitting there coming up with resolutions, maybe you stop, put the pen down and stop, or maybe you just right on your resolutions. Maybe I'll just try to do a little and nothing once a week,

because it's okay to schedule nothing. It's okay to schedule you're nothing. You can be your ganized about doing nothing. She can probably explain it better than I can't. So I hope you enjoy my conversation with Olda making thank you for being here. Now you are the author of uh this book sits on my coffee table. I tell everyone to buy it. Nixon embracing the Dutch art of doing nothing. And of course let's just first and foremost, what is Nixon? It literally means doing nothing in that

or to do do nothing. Um. I just love that the Dutch had one word for, you know, to describe doing nothing, whereas in other languages you would have to use a whole bunch of words like in English would say to do nothing or not to do anything. Yeah, and then the Dutch say just say it in one word, nic And I thought that was brilliant. So would you say, how do you use it in a sentence like I'm nixon ing today? Yeah, I need unique SUNI says, like if you wanted to use it the same way asn't Dutch.

I think it's it's a bit similar in English where you can turn everything into a verb, like each said the word parent as a person, and then it became a verb like parenting or to parent, or you have the noun adult and that also changed to become a verb to adult adult ing right right, kind of similar. So I think, in my opinion, if people next more, they would probably find that in other areas of life,

their anxiety decreases, so that's the listeners. Why I think this book is an important tool kit in your anxiety recovery journey. And and it's really fun as well. And I do think that's a big part of, you know, um, healing your anxious life is remembering to have fun. So where it all started with you? Would you say that your New York Times article from twenty nine it was called um, the Case for doing Nothing? Is this what

made you um famous for talking about Nixt? And well, I wrote an article before that for a smaller publication, and it was it was more of a trend piece, like because in like twenties sixteen, we had Hugo, the Danish trend of coziness of you know, lightning candles and I'm wearing warm sweaters and I thought, oh, that's so much work. And then I found out about Nixon and

I thought that's so much better. And I wrote this article called like it was a bit, you know, tongue in cheek and I said, that's the new that trend. That's so much better than Hugo. So and um. And then I think a few months later I wrote a similar story for the New York Times, but it was more of a service piece, so more how how to like how to do nothing more often? And that that one insane. I think it had like a hundred fifty thousand ships and not shares, not not clicks that shares. Um,

I didn't expect that at all. So let's define Nixon. We know it's doing nothing, and somebody listening could say I do nothing all the time. I just watched a movie. And in the book you clearly state it's almost like the best way to define Nixon is to define what it isn't. And I've listed some of the things that you say it isn't. It is not watching TV, it is not looking at the internet. Um, if you're an artist, like a writer, thinking about what you're going to write about,

is not doing nothing. It looks like it from the outside, but nope, it's not laziness, it's not boredom, and it's not going it is going from one distraction to the next. And I mean it's not going from one distraction to the next, although you can follow your fantasies and thoughts. So what what else isn't it? I mean, basically, what's the gist? Yeah, so I kind of tried to to define it, like, um to myself and my readers, what is Nixon? Because I was thinking, okay, scrolling Facebook, is

that doing nothing? Or um answering emails? And is that doing nothing? Because so many people you know at work, for example, when you're asking, hey, what you're doing like like um And I kind of tried to define it, and I found it very hard to define simply because you know, often people make their own definition of what doing nothing is to them. The definition I use in the book is um is to fold and one part is to do nothing, to literally do nothing. So not

browsing Facebook, not reading emails, that's pe one. Part two is without a purpose, because so often we expect everything we do to have some sort of goal or purpose. For example, we uh, we don't go for walks because it's nice. We go for walks because we feel we have to make a certain amount of steps every day. Yeah, we don't eat because it tastes nice. We eat because

it's healthy or good for us. And I thought it was a pity because it's sometimes nice to do things just because it's just for the hell of it or just because it feels good, not because we expect to get some sort of benefits from it. So in other words, you know, one of the things I thought was really interesting and a great clarification, as you said, it's not mindfulness, you know, we're not. This is not meditation, you know,

which is actually doing something. This is really the opposite. Right, Well, yes, that's what I said in the book. Yeah. But then I talked to our friends and she's like, but you know what if I sit in a cafe and I watched people walk by and kind of space out or our daydream, and she calls it meditation, and I would say,

that's Nixon. Yeah, it's a lot harder to define what it is and what it is, but I think it also gives people more room to kind of apply it in their own life because it's not like, Okay, today I said on my couch and thought, at what work? Oh, I feel that Nixon? Right, there's I think in a wellness space, there's so much feeling that you're a failure

if you don't adhere to those very strict guidelines. If you call meditation sitting in a cafe and you're watching people go by or watching the clouds, it's something to me that sneaks sensor. So she called it notation. I called the Nix and and it's sort of the thing. It can be the same thing, just the same way watching TV. Right, you can watch TV in a way you kind of take in what's happening. You're watching the action. You think, Okay, those are great actors, I really like

this actress, or there's a great movie. And I can also kind of think about something else or space out in and it goes somewhere in your head and the movie will play in the background. Yeah, I found that much. Those are too Junison. Yeah, that makes sense. You're not get letting it. Um, you're letting your mind wander. And I do see what your friend is saying. So she's

doing a thing but calling it meditation. But I would say, as someone who does mindfulness meditation, I do think it's different in the sense of when I do mindfulness, I'm supposed to wrangle my thoughts back to this one thing. Right, And I don't enjoy meditating, but I do it, and I have to force myself to sit and do it. I'm happy when I've done it. Nixon, I don't have to force myself. It's comes naturally. And I love watching my mind wander. Um, I don't even feel the pressure

unlike mindfulness to watch my mind. I don't care. I don't even remember what I've just thought, you know, that kind of thing, and it is it to me. It does feel different. Where like you said, there's no point to it, um in the moment. I mean maybe I think in life there is a point to it, but

like in the moment, right, there's no goal. But I like how you mentioned wellness because in the book, and I'm paraphrasing something you said, but that you know, there's a problem in the wellness industry that all of these things people are telling us to do, it's really a quest for happiness. But it's a process that's devoid of joy. And I love that. That's so true. It's kind of felt to meet that way. It's all very It's supposed to be hard work. Like everything we do is supposed

to be hard work. Whether we eat, we kind of, you know, just make ourselves dinner. You have to be it has to be especially prepared, and and we have to read labels at the supermarket to make sure that no chemicals enter our sacred bodies. And um, we kind of just move around. We have to do certain steps of exercises, it's all you know, we have to do this, we have to do this, and now we could do this.

And and I like what you said about meditation. I think that the differences between like ignacizing and just moving for the sake of it. So let's say my brother. Um, my brother is very active, very athletic, and he runs my marathon sometimes. Yeah, and he says, um, when I trained for a marathon, he runs, right. But the idea is that he trains for a marathon. That's not Nixon, but he just goes for a run because he likes it.

That would be Nixon. And maybe not Nixon, but least what I is what I called in the book, I called it the Nixon approach. Yeah right, I forgot about that for the Nixon approach, Yeah, which is like just because I like it because I like it because it feels good. It feels good because I feel like it because just because yeah, well it's true. You know, with the wellness industry, what I saw expect I was really

blown away that during lockdown. You know, it was great, but so many online exercise places had free yoga and free anything, you know whatever. Um, and they would do us a thirty day challenge, And I'm like, are we still using that language during a global pandemic? And I just hate that. I hate wellness and it always has these other words involved challenge. Everything has to be contest,

a competition, you know, instagram worthy. Like you said, cooking dinner, you better make it look beautiful because then you have to post about it. You know, It's there's just I feel like there's just been a lot of like you said, joy sucked out of things that we did used to do for pleasure, like cooking or even a yoga class or something like that, and no one is doing the

Nixon approach. Yeah, exactly. And my ment problem with the wellness industry was basically, you know, if if society is perfect and one person has anxiety, that's an individual problem. But if so many people have anxiety, then that's not an individual problem. That's a social problem, I think. And then one that tells us, you know, I have to look into yourself and get rid of your own anxiety, like it's your problem. Will be right back. Can you give me an example? How do you do next? And

how do you next? So mostly on my couch and often while reading, and um, because when I'm reading well, I love books, but often when I'm reading, it's I read a very nice sentence, just like it's nice words put together, and then I need to think about that because it's just such a nice sentence or something I've read that makes me remember something else that I read in a different book that I kind of begin thinking about this connection between those two things, or kind of

I get an idea for another another article or something. So it's gonna be often while reading or just saying, sitting on my couch, and it's I found very often that Nixon, you know, with meditation, um you're told to meditate for maybe you know, how half an hour something like in this ball park of how you know half an hour, it could be longer. Nixon is going to

be more in between things. For example, I said, you know, being a creative and thinking about writing, even if it looks like Nix, and it isn't, but it often does kind of states you go from nixton to think about work, just thinking about your kids, just thinking about something else, and maybe if you sit on that couch for you don't know, fifteen minutes, maybe a part of it is going to be spent Nixon thing. But a part of it, it's not and that's something normal I found. I found that,

at least how that's how my brain works. It just jumps from one thought to another. And from what I read, that's supposed to be a bust thing, but that's very often how I'm I get my best ideas. Mm hmm. That makes sense because you know as a writer, to you there's a like I had a project and I had a month to do it, and the first two weeks I didn't sit down and type anything, but it wasn't procrastination. It feels very different in my body. So the first two weeks is very buzzy and creative. I

can just feel it in my soul. But part of my creative process is to not right right away, and then sometimes when I put off writing, we're getting now into procrastination. And that brings me to something that you talked about in your book as well, which is that there are three types of procrastinators, and one of them

is the anxious procrastinator, and that's me. And so if you can I think we'll stick with that one because it's an anxiety pocket if you can talk to us about I just we kind of just naturally jumped here. But I have so much to get back to you. But if you can talk about what is an anxious procrastinator? But how can practicing Nixon help with that? Yeah, so that's not my kind of UM like, I wrother about this, but yeah, the person who told me about it was

Christian Reuben. Oh yeah, I found an article of hers where she said that the way she fights procrastination is by telling herself, Okay, either you do the work, are you don't do anything? Those are the two choices. You do what you're supposed to do. You do the work, you're right, Are you kind of do the re podcast or whatever? Or you do nothing. You don't go organize your bookshelf, you don't go, you know, cook dinner. You

don't do that. Wow. And her point is that at some point the the just the idea of not doing anything and sitting there, it's become so unbearable and you started working. But not that's not what anxious procrastinators do. I think what they do is, well, they have a um deadline brooming and uh like the project seems so big and overwhelming that they feel they kind of do it, but they want to few productive, so instead they're gonna

go and organize their bookshelves. Yeah, that that that's definitely relatable. I love that because, yeah, if you choose to do nothing, it probably will open up your creativity a little bit. And then eventually you'll just get sick of doing nothing and you have to go do the other thing. If you can really stick to those two rules, you know.

But do you think that that it can help um, you know, creative people with the thought process to just kind of I feel like if it's almost like a computer, like every once in a while, if you just don't turn your computer off for even ten minutes a day, I feel like it's getting hot, it's overheating. Things get slower. I mean, is there is there a benefit that doesn't happen in the moment that happens later if we practice doing nothing and I don't even know how often how

many minutes a day we're supposed to do it? So how long and how often should we do it? And then what are the benefits that show up later? Yes? So I cannot tell you how often or how long, just as as long as you can kind of bear it, or as long as you're able to. And maybe if you look at your at what you're doing during the day, you'll find that you might actually spend more time doing

nothing than you think. Um, not really, we kind of there's are cause these small moments that we tend to look over because they're not productive or we think they're not productive, which speaking as productivity, I spoke to productivity experts and was still, look, we know that we've our bodies work all day long in some capacity, running, jumping, pushing stuff, picking up stuff. It gets tired. Everybodies get tired, and we need to eat, and we need to drink,

and we need breaks. But when it comes to mind, I think the expectation is that we're supposed to if we're at work and working in a kind of office sort of environment and you know nine job, we are expected to for for our brains to work that whole time. Right, We don't think, oh, you know, maybe if our bodies need a break, maybe our brains do too. So we kind of expect people to give all throughout all that. You know, I eat plus hours day at work and

that's not that's not feasible, that's not possible. And I know for myself when I spend too long writing an article I end up writing nonsense like things. I read it later and it was wasted time because things make no sense. It would have been much better for me

to stop too. If I feel myself getting tired or feel that I'm missing words, of forgetting words or kind of find the right word, that would be a good moment to get up and do something else and maybe do nothing, or read a book, or make myself some tea, or go for a walk, or go for a bicycle ride, do something that's not connected to this kind of intensive thinking that that's involved in writing or maybe also in you know, office type of job, because many of us

work in those kind of we work with our brains, many of us. Yeah, if we take breaks throughout the day, we actually feel more productive and when we get more done in a short amount of time, which is a bit paradoxical. But I think like old productivity experts I talked to, they say the same thing. You know, and people start eating lunch at their desk. Now, so they're eating, but there's no break. You know, they're not sitting in the sun and enjoying food, and and you know, honestly,

too bad. It was linked to something that's bad for your health smoking. But I would imagine that smokers had this built in Nixon, you know, seven minutes a day, seven minutes at a time, a few times a day, you know, you take your smoke break. And I think, you know, if you were a smoker and had to go take a smoke break, that would still be acceptable. But if you said I need to stand outside and do nothing for seven minutes, I think people would think

you were lazy. You know, yeah, exactly, exactly. And it's not even about you know, just a small change of scenery, even if you go from your office to the cafe or something that's already something. So productivity is one big benefit of doing nothing, and the other one we talked about increased creativity. There's even us super interesting study that I mentioned in the book um done with fm arai machines, where one group of people was told to do nothing

or just enjoy your thoughts. The other group was told to kind of um silver task, maybe a crossbord puzzle or something. And the expectation is what what was our brains are either active or they're not active. What it turned out, however, was that the group that did nothing they had rain areas very specific very wide reaching brain areas light up in the FM array machines and actually in the people who did the task. The brain activity decreased and the brain areas that come to light during

doing nothing. It's called the default mode network, and it may be responsible for creativity. So we we can access the default mode network by doing nothing, but we're not accessing it really when we're focused on a task. Is that it? Yeah, that's one way to put it. The way I explained it in the book was that if we do a task, the brain sends energy to the

areas that are needed for doing a task. So for example, and a cross worre a puzzle, it would probably send energy to like your language center something right, if you're if it was as kind of thing, it would send an energy to parts of the brain that are responsible for numbers. But maybe if we're not doing anything, it just looked like, Okay, it looks like I don't know, maybe like a rain scan that doesn't really focus on

one area. So I'm just interested in the cultural differences too, because I was just thinking we were talking about the office. You know, so many people have offices at their place of work. I don't mean in their home, and there's always a couch in the office, there's some kind of comfy chair. I have never seen anyone actually sit in it.

I think if you walked by someone not sitting at their desk and just sitting in their comfy chair in their office staring off into space, you might think, what's wrong. You know, something's wrong. They're upset. It's just so not a thing I see. Um. I know, at one point when I was working day jobs when I was younger, there was a big thing of, you know, hell, let's have fun things in the office, ping pong tables, things

like that. But again it was always something we're doing, keeping busy, and there was never just sit there, maybe stretch a little. And I think in America we're still not there yet. You know. Um, there's this. I think a lot of businesses are struggling with the fact that their employees are loving working from home, you know, and bosses like to see you. I want to see you sitting at a desk, even if you're not doing anything. You know, And so is that different. Are you're in

the Netherlands right, Yes, I'm in the Netherlands. So is it inherently different? I think I have this fantasy that everywhere but America knows how to do nothing better and where where where? Um ashamed of it? And even if we do do it, we're shamed of it. We hide it. It's not part of our culture. We don't have a cs to, we don't have you know, built in things

like that. Yeah. Well, I I don't know. When I first wrote about Nixon, I had many Dutch to reach out to me and say, oh, but the Netherlands, we're so busy. And it's probably true the Dutch, but probably busier on the used to be I guess, but um, yeah, there's I think they're they're definitely um differences in like working culture. How in the Adalance, for example, you may not be like applauded for staying a work late. Yeah, you know, just be normal, go home, that's great. Yeah,

the normal is a big thing you're in. It's like they have a saying be normal. It's already crazy enough. That's great. Depending I guess on what they're saying normal is. But if normal is going home on time or early, I love it. Yeah, it's it's often kind of Um. I think the golden golden rule is it's a good way to put it how you supposed like you're you're expected to work but not too much. Yeah, it's really different here because if you um leave on time, which

is now considered early. Yeah, if you better have kids or an emergency or a spouse, and so single people without kids are are always seen as well, what do you possibly have going on? You know, if you're leaving work right now, and and again it's it's um, we're just not there yet. And also the busy mom, the

busy dad that's leaving. I mean, I don't think they should only be allowed to leave because of their kids either, you know, it should be I'd like to leave it five because I've done my work for the day and I'm not gonna sit until six just because everyone else's. But I think the underlying thing is that everyone needs to read this book. And I feel like corporations almost need to hire nix and experts or something. I feel like we have to normalize this as part of working

in the same way that crops have down seasons. You know, this is part you know, if the type of person needs it presented to them in a way that they can relate to, it's part of productivity, you know. But I do think you said that in some cultures, definitely America. You said nothing is a negative work, right, Yeah, what is? It can't connotes what laziness or something. Yeah, doing nothing

like either. So for example, I imagine a scene where you know, at work, someone is I don't know, browsing Facebook and the free time or something, or in a break, and then someone comes in there and what you do nothing because you know, I'm doing something not connected to work, So I'm ashamed of it or embarrassed in some way, and I'd rather not tell them writing Facebook. Although, like

you mentioned, you know America. But I found the guilt over doing nothing was pretty much universal, like all of the world. And maybe if it wasn't work, then it was guilt or we're not spending more time with family, it was guilt over being a that parent, it was guilt over not attending religious um ceremonies or traditions. Um. So I think this guilt when when people said and did nothing, was universal all over the world. I was actually pretty surprised about this. But at the same time,

in pretty much every language there was something. It wasn't always doing nothing, yeah, but it was something very similar. So and you tell you which is like sweet, doing nothing, or even in English, you could say doing sweet sweet nothing or lazy Sunday afternoon. And they they they say something positive about, you know, spending your lazy Sunday afternoon. It is actually a very nice thing. Yes, so it's not always described in negative ways. That makes sense, I know,

and I want more than a lazy Sunday afternoon. I want laziness built in every day as part of my day. And you know, you've mentioned too that we might be wired. You said in your book that we're kind of wired for laziness inherently. What what does that mean exactly? We're we're almost wired for nixt and it is a natural state for us. Yes, so it isn't. It isn't because well, imagine if you're a hunter gatherer and you kind of you probably are spending lots of time catching food, preparing

would making tools, doing lots of stuff. And at the same time, you know that you can get eaten by a last there were too s tiger or something any moments. So if you don't work hard, you have you have no food. Right, If you make tools, it takes a lot of time because you're you know, you can't. You don't have machines for that, and and so we're wired

for hard work. But like there was a study done by this French guy, um he actually checked if people were like the people, the choice between the stairs and the elevator, what would they choose? And most people choose the elevator, not the stairs. Right, that's my people in a place in the Netherlands. They do bike a lot, but usually if you get the choice, you know, between driving and walking, you're probably gonna drive. So we actually like how you go, like choosing the easiest, laziest way

to do stuff to get places. Yeah, that's good to hear that that it's not like we're going against our nature by practicing doing nothing. Like I I will look at a day I've had and I'll go, well, I did some yoga dismanitation, but I still feel I like a computer that's overheating and I'm ten minutes sometimes of just zoning out is enough to bring me back to I don't know what it is, it just built up

over time. It really does something that's that's good to hear because I also talked about this with with psychologists for for my book, and what she said was but there's a whole chapter on when Nixon is not a good idea. And she said, you know, if you're very anxious and you kind of bring yourself down to like a state of relative calm, or at least not where you're not super anxious, Nixon might not feel good for you. Yeah, So she said there are people who kind of start

doing nothing. They keep getting antsy because it feels not very nice in their bodies. And she said for them, maybe a better idea would be too kind of do you a scrap book or cook something, or do something that's kind of approach. It is super popular, um coloring for adults, stuff like that that's kind of slow. It doesn't engage your brain too much. I can engage is

your hands, but not your brain so much. So you're kind of paying attention by not paying attention, which may have the same benefits like Nix, and but not feel like they're feeling okay, my husbands are busy, so I'm doing something which is good. And she said that in her center for kind of stress, she's getting people to walk slowly to get their heart shade kind of slow down a bit. And so but it's good to hear that it can work for, you know, people with anxiety. Yeah,

I think I can, and I think you're ready. Think it depends on the kind of person. Some people don't, you know, I want to be alone with their thoughts because their thoughts may be attacking them and it might be really uncomfortable. And thank god I don't have that so much. When I sit and do nothing, it feels right to me. Um, I think if it didn't, I probably wouldn't do it. But I I yeah, that makes sense.

But like you said at the beginning, they're cooking or coloring with the Nixon approach, which is for no reason except to you know, maybe slow down a little bit. But it's not to achieve something. They're not going to sell that, you know, the thing they colored in a

museum or enter it into a contest. I was so into a friend about this, about this kind of how you expected to monetize hobbies, Like any time you kind of paint something or draw something or take a picture, you go, let you should sell doge It's yeah, it's really it's the way my mind works too. Well. Why would I take piano lessons? I mean, I'm not going to become a professional piano player. It's like, jeez, I can't you know, I catch myself thinking things like that,

like how about just because I enjoy it? You know? Yeah, anxiety bites will be right back after a quick little message from one of our sponsors. You mentioned in your book emotional labor, and I've I've heard this term a lot um and it really dawned on me how much

of our thoughts our emotional labor. And so you said, Nixon is definitely not sitting around thinking and planning dinner and how you're going to pick up the kids and where are they gonna go to college and wondering blah blah blah blah, like and you said, women are are constantly just the way our brains work. If we're taking care of family, especially, we're constantly doing emotional labor in our heads. And that is not Nixon, No, and it's

not in human to women. We just kind of socialized like that we can't take it on then then we kind of stop in some way. And I again, I was just so fascinated but this idea that there's there are types of work that looks like doing nothing but aren't. Yeah, and and there's also this way we tend to as a society, we tend to view men's and women's work

in time differently. So a man a man's time. For example, if you have a guy sitting on the couch, you'd go, he's thinking big important thoughts for his next big novel, or he's resting because he has such a hard day at work. And imagine a woman, um, in the same position, sitting around on the couch doing nothing, and and you go, oh, are her kids wise in the house? Clean? Um. And there's this book I read called Overwhelmed, and an expert quoted in the book said, this is why to get

free time. This is why women became nuns. Like literally, it was the only place where they could do nothing. And women protect men's time, Like I was saying, No, a mom would say to the kids, you know, don't interrupt add he's resting, or he's thinking, or he's working or something. Men protect their own time as well. No one protects women's sign Oh my god, mind blown over here, I know. So it's like there's this idea that whatever it is, a woman can always be interrupted. And I

read somewhere, I'm not sure which book that was. How men's son is considered limited and therefore valuable, whereas women's sim is considered endless and therefore you know, there's so much of it that we can all get a piece of it or some part of it. But it's hard on men too, because they feel if they're not producing, providing, working, doing something, they're not being valuable somehow. And that's kind

of very ingrained in there. I mean, of course, not all men, but many many do so it's it's hard for both genders. So that brings me my last question. And these are like my type A questions about Nixon, because I know anyone listening might be kind of a type anxiety person. Go okay, well wait, can you do Nixon with another person? Can you and your husband or sister or best friends saying let's sit together and do

some Nixon or does it not work that way? Well? No, I was surprised to hear that it could work that way. You know, two people sitting next to each other and each one is reading their book. Yeah, right, so that's not exactly Nixon, but it's not. It's it's it's a quiet activity done together. Yeah, mostly like a thing you do for yourself. So the same way you could kind of Nix together with your husband or sister or our spouse or something like why not sit in chilence together?

That would be like Nixon. That sounds lovely. Oh um. And then can you planet, like, can I put in my calendar from one to two, I have a meeting on zoom from two to three I'm going to try to do some Nixon Or is that defeating the purpose? No, you could do like they're you know, it all depends

on what sort of person you are. And many people benefit from having like an agenda in our calendar something and putting their stuff in there, and what goes on the agenda gets done or not not done in case of things soon, so like they know, if it's on there, it's important, so it has to be taking care of. So it doesn't it doesn't rely on spontaneity. It could what I'm saying, is it It could? It could be organized, it could be planned, but it could be some spontaneous

depending on what sort of person you are. Ye, and there are people um, so for example, I found a great time for Nixon is when you're waiting for something or someone. I do it sometimes when I'm traveling somewhere on a train or bus and I and I may have a book with me, but sometimes I don't. And then I just gaze out of the window and look at the class and look at this how the landscape is changing. And that's sort of nixed in too. Yeah.

There was a day that I was in line, I'm really long line at a store and I had out in my phone in my car and it was like, oh my god, what do I do? You know, And I didn't have a book or a magazine and I just stood there and you know, I used to do that before there was a phone in my hand all the time, and I it was weird. I just stood there. I don't even know what else to say. I stood there and I don't remember anything I thought. I just kind of looked at people, and you know, I survived.

I lived to tell the tale of spending ten minutes without my phone. But um, I never thought of that right as Nixon, But that that's a great way to practice it too. I think if people are thinking of starting a practice of adding more NIX into their life, like the little ways you can do at are these moments where we'd normally stare at our phone or you know, something like that. It's like, see if you can last five minutes in line at the bank or something, just

do nothing. Well, I think that's all my questions for you. What is there anything I hate this question because it's so not Nixon, But do you have, um, anything coming up on the horizon that involves Nixon, Um, more professional things or another book coming out about something different? Um not at the moment um, I would kind of I'm

working on like like a parenting book kind of thing. Yeah, because I read it's kind of I started out as a parenting by doing and then kind of Nixon was a bit of an exception, you a way that I wrote it and then it went so big and um, there's a Facebook group called the Nixon News. Oh I love that. Okay, people are joining that, Yeah, yeah, join us. I made up like I was saying, how to call a person because it does nothing, and I thought Nixon, you sounds nice like Musquito, but for Nixon. Yeah, I

love that. Oh that's great. Okay, So we'll look for your writing. I'm sure people will want to read your parenting book, um, especially if they've loved your book about Nix. And I'm sure it'll be equally insightful. Um, thank you so much. I I love your book. It's on my coffee table. I buy this as UM gifts for people on their birthday. I think everyone needs. Everyone needs to read it and just have it. It's really fun to

flip through. It's it's really really um intelligent and and like you said, there are just so many studies in it. I mean it's it's really a pretty scientific book as well, even though it's a really fun read. So I geek out of it. I think, yeah, I geek out on it too. I I'm so glad that what I do a lot is actually there's a name for it. And I like to think it's good for me and the name for it. It's it's important for people who like to kind of oh that's what it is, even if

it's another in a different language. I think having like one word for a certain state of mind or activity or emotion even, Yeah, it's important for for some people. Do you have that to kind to be able to recognize it? Oh, this is what I do. Yeah, it's it's always good on something as a name. And if I may just go a little crazy here, I will say that it's a real revolutionary act against all of the capitalism in the world that we were talking about earlier.

People just thinking they can't do a hobby or else they have to sell it. You know, it's like it's very revolutionary to just opt out for even a few minutes a day and just say no, I'm just doing nothing. So hopefully it helps a lot of people during this really anxious time in the world. And thank you so much for coming on my show. Thank you so much for having me. Was a pleasure. Thanks for listening to

another episode of Anxiety Bites. Okay, before you do Nixon, before you practice the art of doing nothing, hip Apple podcast and give this podcast a five star review. That would mean the world to me. And you can follow me on the social media stuff Twitter at Jen Kirkman, j E n k I r K m A and Instagram same exact handle, And if you love the show, please tag me in your Instagram stories and if you're on Twitter, you can use the hashtag Anxiety Bites podcast.

But please do use those handles to tell me how much you love the show. It really helps, and then I can repost or retweet you and everyone that follows me will be like, oh my God, what are these people talking about? Let me get into this Anxiety Bites podcast. Now, let's get into the takeaways. So the Dutch have one word to describe doing nothing, and the word is Nixon. Nixon literally means doing nothing, to do nothing. Part one of practicing the art of Nixon is really to do nothing.

You're not checking Facebook, you're not reading emails, and number two, doing whatever the nothing that it is you're doing without a purpose. So let's say you want to take a walk. Okay, it doesn't mean you have to sit still and just sit there. You can take a walk. You can practice the art of Nixon with walking, but there's no purpose. You're not trying to get your steps in. You're not thinking about losing when you're not going and we're just walking.

Because let's say, for example, you're a marathon runner. If you're training for a marathon, you're not practicing Nixon. But if you're just going for a run because you like it, you're practicing Nixon. The wellness industry is very individualized care and it tells us you have to look into yourself and get rid of your own issues, as though everything is your problem and not a societal problem. And that's

where the wellness industry can let us down. Productivity experts know that our bodies work all day long in some capacity doing physical things. Our bodies get tired and we need a break. We need to eat, we need to drink, we need to sleep. When it comes to the mind, sometimes feels like the expectation is we're just supposed to work, work, work, work, work, but that's not feasible. If we take breaks throughout the day, we actually do feel more productive and might get more

done in a shorter amount of time. But according to the productivity experts, it sounds paradoxical, but it is true. Product activity is one big benefit of doing nothing for a little while and increased creativity. There's even a study that shows with f m r I machines, one group of people were told to do nothing and just enjoy their thoughts, and the other people were told to solve

a task or do a crossword puzzle. And the people doing a crossboard puzzle the area of the m r I, you know that goes to the part of the brain that you need to function and do the puzzle. It was all lit up. But the people who are just kind of doing nothing and enjoying their thoughts or entire brain lit up. Nixon does not have to be spontaneous. You can schedule your Nixon and you can do Nixon with someone else. So basically the takeaway is there's really

no rules. You'll know in your heart when you're really doing nothing, or when you're sitting there worrying about things you have to do or watching TV, but really not letting your mind just totally wander and letting yourself enjoy just being yourself. And hey, you know what, it might be a creative way to feel less anxious if we just let ourselves be every once in a while and not feel like we have to be striving for something. We sort of teach ourselves that is okay to not

be in constant pursuit of something. That's definitely what I want to do more of in two and I challenge you too, in a non challenging way, do the same, except for writing that five star iTunes review that's very important. Thanks again, and remember anxiety bites, but you're in control. For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.