What is Niksen and why is it good?

What is niksen?

We are now in our fourth month of the COVID-19 pandemic, and many people are getting frustrated with staying at home. I’ve had several friends complain about feeling bored and stuck.

But what if being bored is good for us?

Enter the Dutch concept of niksen – which translates to doing nothing, to being idle, or doing something of no use. According to articles in The New York Times and Time Magazine, all of us could benefit from niksen as an antidote to the stress of our current style of living and a challenge to the idea the being busy gives us value.

In the Netherlands, niksen has long been dismissed as lazy and counterproductive, but as stress levels rise, and along with them, negative effects on our physical and mental health, more experts are touting niksen as a beneficial and necessary practice not just in the Netherlands, but around the world. If we embrace niksen, we all might be more calm and less exhausted. We could also boost our creativity and become better problem solvers!

I don’t know about you, but could use a little more creativity and calm in my life.

Tips for practicing niksen

We have been told for years that being busy means being successful, so making the time to do nothing could be a hard habit to embrace. Plan time in your day for niksen breaks. Figure out when you are most productive and when your energy starts to wane. At the first sign of sleepiness or mental fatigue, take a niksen break: take a walk (without listening to an audio book or podcast!), stare out the window, or find a comfy chair and day dream. And leave your device someplace else.

Set up your environment to practice niksen. Have chairs that face windows instead of TVs. Create a device free space. Identify areas in and near your home that support idleness.

Resist the culture of business, and don’t feel guilty about saying no or taking breaks. Your brain and your body need time to relax. If you practice niksen, you aren’t being lazy, you are taking good care of yourself, something we don’t do enough.

Ironically, these two articles, The Case for Doing Nothing and Niksen Is the Dutch Lifestyle Concept of Doing Nothing—And You’re About to See It Everywhere were published in spring of 2019, well before any of us anticipated The Great Corona Virus Quarantine of 2020. I know you are tired of laying low, but hopefully learning about niksen will help you turn “stuck at home” into “practicing good health”, in more ways than one. 😉

Sidebar: my dad is Dutch, and I can’t wait to hear if he’s familiar with this concept!

If you’re interested in other trends from foreign countries, check out my post on the Danish concept of hygge. Next week, I’ll share more ideas for boosting creativity.

If you like to learn new words and the origins of their meanings, visit the Wondrous Words Wednesday meme at Bermuda Onion. Each Wednesday, bloggers share new words they’ve learned.

How are you managing your extended time “staying at home”?

Thanks for getting nerdy with me!

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