Niksen: The Wellness Trend That Means Doing Nothing
Put down your phone, turn off the computer, and forget about those clothes on the floor and the dirty plates in the kitchen, because it's time for niksen.
This is one of the more recent wellness trends, and it sounds like one of the easiest. Niksen means "doing nothing."
It comes from the Dutch word niks, which means "nothing," and it has become quite popular. Some gyms in the UK have even begun niksen classes!
But while niksen does sound like the easiest thing in the world to do, many people say that because our lives are so busy, switching off is actually quite hard.
Olga Mecking has written a book about it, and she says it's different from meditation. When we meditate, we're concentrating on breathing or on our thoughts, but niksen really means doing nothing.
It's about "letting your mind wander wherever it wants to go," says Mecking.
The idea is to spend time without any purpose, according to Carolien Hamming, a stress expert from the Netherlands.
However, there is no right or wrong way to niks — that's the verb some people use to talk about their time spent doing nothing.
And it may take some practice to get used to it, the experts say.
Megan Cannon, a social worker in the US, told NBC that you can begin by looking at a tree, and then just "let the thoughts go where they will."
There might not be a purpose to that time you spend doing nothing, but those who enjoy niksen think it can help with stress and burnout.
So the next time you're sitting doing nothing at all, you don't have to feel lazy: just say you're doing niksen!
