Speaker 1: This is the Anxiety Bites podcast and I am your host,
Speaker 1: Jen Kirkman. Hi there, and welcome to another episode of
Speaker 1: Anxiety Bites. So I was thinking, as we're close to
Speaker 1: the new year, here to give you an anti New
Speaker 1: Year's resolution, what if this year you did more nothing?
Speaker 1: And I don't mean look at your phone and scroll Twitter,
Speaker 1: I mean nothing, And I don't mean watch a movie nothing.
Speaker 1: I mean nothing. And I don't mean sit around and
Speaker 1: stare at the ceiling and make it to do list
Speaker 1: in your head and think about all the work that
Speaker 1: you have to do, or worry about anything. I mean nothing.
Speaker 1: It's not meditating. You can have thoughts going through your head,
Speaker 1: but what if they were just fantasies you I don't know,
Speaker 1: sit there and think about your the star of a
Speaker 1: I don't know music video. I'm just fans as are
Speaker 1: just look around and let thoughts come and go. But
Speaker 1: is I'm meditating? You're just actually doing nothing. You're just chilling.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess maybe you could read a book,
Speaker 1: as long as whatever you're doing isn't for a goal.
Speaker 1: It's not like I have to read this book for work.
Speaker 1: Am I gonna watch this movie? Because you know it's
Speaker 1: gonna inspire me to do something, you know, it just
Speaker 1: just do nothing. That's I was gonna say, what I'm
Speaker 1: challenging you to do. I hate the word challenge. I
Speaker 1: hate in the New Years when it's like yoga challenge.
Speaker 1: That doesn't really that's not seeing what yoga is all
Speaker 1: about to me. Challenge yourself to meditate. I don't like
Speaker 1: that either. That's why I love today's guest Olga mek Ing.
Speaker 1: We talk about the art of doing nothing. You know,
Speaker 1: there's that great Seinfeld episode where I don't know, I
Speaker 1: think it's from season three or something. It was early
Speaker 1: on in the series when um Jerry Seinfeld's character Jerry
Speaker 1: gets approached by these executives and NBC and they want
Speaker 1: him to come up with a sick come idea. And
Speaker 1: he's talking to his friend George Costanza about it, and
Speaker 1: you know, George is like, Okay, what if you run
Speaker 1: a zoo or you no, you'r blah blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: And one day they're just sitting at the diner talking
Speaker 1: about salsa and George is like, this is the show
Speaker 1: this and Jerry's like, what's the show And George is
Speaker 1: like this, you know, talking about Salza, you know, just
Speaker 1: nothing and Jerry's like nothing and George is like, that's it.
Speaker 1: The your sitcom is about nothing. And Jerry's like nothing,
Speaker 1: I mean, what happens. He's like the same thing that
Speaker 1: happens in real life. You know, there's a character based
Speaker 1: on me and Elaine and Cramer and we come to
Speaker 1: your apartment sometimes we sit and talk at the diner's
Speaker 1: like nothing and Jerry goes, huh, nothing could be something.
Speaker 1: And then they go pitch it to the network and
Speaker 1: networks like well what happens? And George is like nothing,
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, something has to happen. He's like, no,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. Oh my god. I love that episode. But
Speaker 1: that is the art of Nixon, not Nixon, like the
Speaker 1: President n I K S E. N. That is the
Speaker 1: name of Olga Meckings book, Nixon embracing the Dutch art
Speaker 1: of doing nothing. Thing. Shroout the book in English and
Speaker 1: it's going to be translated in a ton of languages.
Speaker 1: And the book came out and it sits on my
Speaker 1: coffee table because I think it's a great reminder. It's
Speaker 1: a really fun book to flip through, but it's well,
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about it when I talk to
Speaker 1: her in this episode about really the only way to
Speaker 1: define Nixon is to talk about what it isn't and um,
Speaker 1: and there's a science behind it. It's actually really good
Speaker 1: for your brain to kind of do nothing every once
Speaker 1: in a while. It's like turning off your phone, you know,
Speaker 1: and just letting it reset itself again. Even though great
Speaker 1: things happen when you do nothing, you don't even have
Speaker 1: to think about all the great things that are gonna
Speaker 1: happen when you're doing nothing, because it's a little too
Speaker 1: much like doing something. So I don't know, maybe this
Speaker 1: new year, while you're sitting there coming up with resolutions,
Speaker 1: maybe you stop, put the pen down and stop, or
Speaker 1: maybe you just right on your resolutions. Maybe I'll just
Speaker 1: try to do a little and nothing once a week,
Speaker 1: because it's okay to schedule nothing. It's okay to schedule
Speaker 1: you're nothing. You can be your ganized about doing nothing.
Speaker 1: She can probably explain it better than I can't. So
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoy my conversation with Olda making thank
Speaker 1: you for being here. Now you are the author of
Speaker 1: uh this book sits on my coffee table. I tell
Speaker 1: everyone to buy it. Nixon embracing the Dutch art of
Speaker 1: doing nothing. And of course let's just first and foremost,
Speaker 1: what is Nixon? It literally means doing nothing in that
Speaker 1: or to do do nothing. Um. I just love that the
Speaker 1: Dutch had one word for, you know, to describe doing nothing,
Speaker 1: whereas in other languages you would have to use a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of words like in English would say to
Speaker 1: do nothing or not to do anything. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: the Dutch say just say it in one word, nic
Speaker 1: And I thought that was brilliant. So would you say,
Speaker 1: how do you use it in a sentence like I'm
Speaker 1: nixon ing today? Yeah, I need unique SUNI says, like
Speaker 1: if you wanted to use it the same way asn't Dutch.
Speaker 1: I think it's it's a bit similar in English where
Speaker 1: you can turn everything into a verb, like each said
Speaker 1: the word parent as a person, and then it became
Speaker 1: a verb like parenting or to parent, or you have
Speaker 1: the noun adult and that also changed to become a
Speaker 1: verb to adult adult ing right right, kind of similar.
Speaker 1: So I think, in my opinion, if people next more,
Speaker 1: they would probably find that in other areas of life,
Speaker 1: their anxiety decreases, so that's the listeners. Why I think
Speaker 1: this book is an important tool kit in your anxiety
Speaker 1: recovery journey. And and it's really fun as well. And
Speaker 1: I do think that's a big part of, you know, um,
Speaker 1: healing your anxious life is remembering to have fun. So
Speaker 1: where it all started with you? Would you say that
Speaker 1: your New York Times article from twenty nine it was
Speaker 1: called um, the Case for doing Nothing? Is this what
Speaker 1: made you um famous for talking about Nixt? And well,
Speaker 1: I wrote an article before that for a smaller publication,
Speaker 1: and it was it was more of a trend piece,
Speaker 1: like because in like twenties sixteen, we had Hugo, the
Speaker 1: Danish trend of coziness of you know, lightning candles and
Speaker 1: I'm wearing warm sweaters and I thought, oh, that's so
Speaker 1: much work. And then I found out about Nixon and
Speaker 1: I thought that's so much better. And I wrote this
Speaker 1: article called like it was a bit, you know, tongue
Speaker 1: in cheek and I said, that's the new that trend.
Speaker 1: That's so much better than Hugo. So and um. And
Speaker 1: then I think a few months later I wrote a
Speaker 1: similar story for the New York Times, but it was
Speaker 1: more of a service piece, so more how how to
Speaker 1: like how to do nothing more often? And that that
Speaker 1: one insane. I think it had like a hundred fifty
Speaker 1: thousand ships and not shares, not not clicks that shares. Um,
Speaker 1: I didn't expect that at all. So let's define Nixon.
Speaker 1: We know it's doing nothing, and somebody listening could say
Speaker 1: I do nothing all the time. I just watched a movie.
Speaker 1: And in the book you clearly state it's almost like
Speaker 1: the best way to define Nixon is to define what
Speaker 1: it isn't. And I've listed some of the things that
Speaker 1: you say it isn't. It is not watching TV, it
Speaker 1: is not looking at the internet. Um, if you're an artist,
Speaker 1: like a writer, thinking about what you're going to write about,
Speaker 1: is not doing nothing. It looks like it from the outside,
Speaker 1: but nope, it's not laziness, it's not boredom, and it's
Speaker 1: not going it is going from one distraction to the next.
Speaker 1: And I mean it's not going from one distraction to
Speaker 1: the next, although you can follow your fantasies and thoughts.
Speaker 1: So what what else isn't it? I mean, basically, what's
Speaker 1: the gist? Yeah, so I kind of tried to to
Speaker 1: define it, like, um to myself and my readers, what
Speaker 1: is Nixon? Because I was thinking, okay, scrolling Facebook, is
Speaker 1: that doing nothing? Or um answering emails? And is that
Speaker 1: doing nothing? Because so many people you know at work,
Speaker 1: for example, when you're asking, hey, what you're doing like
Speaker 1: like um And I kind of tried to define it,
Speaker 1: and I found it very hard to define simply because
Speaker 1: you know, often people make their own definition of what
Speaker 1: doing nothing is to them. The definition I use in
Speaker 1: the book is um is to fold and one part
Speaker 1: is to do nothing, to literally do nothing. So not
Speaker 1: browsing Facebook, not reading emails, that's pe one. Part two
Speaker 1: is without a purpose, because so often we expect everything
Speaker 1: we do to have some sort of goal or purpose.
Speaker 1: For example, we uh, we don't go for walks because
Speaker 1: it's nice. We go for walks because we feel we
Speaker 1: have to make a certain amount of steps every day. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't eat because it tastes nice. We eat because
Speaker 1: it's healthy or good for us. And I thought it
Speaker 1: was a pity because it's sometimes nice to do things
Speaker 1: just because it's just for the hell of it or
Speaker 1: just because it feels good, not because we expect to
Speaker 1: get some sort of benefits from it. So in other words,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things I thought was really
Speaker 1: interesting and a great clarification, as you said, it's not mindfulness,
Speaker 1: you know, we're not. This is not meditation, you know,
Speaker 1: which is actually doing something. This is really the opposite. Right, Well, yes,
Speaker 1: that's what I said in the book. Yeah. But then
Speaker 1: I talked to our friends and she's like, but you
Speaker 1: know what if I sit in a cafe and I
Speaker 1: watched people walk by and kind of space out or
Speaker 1: our daydream, and she calls it meditation, and I would say,
Speaker 1: that's Nixon. Yeah, it's a lot harder to define what
Speaker 1: it is and what it is, but I think it
Speaker 1: also gives people more room to kind of apply it
Speaker 1: in their own life because it's not like, Okay, today
Speaker 1: I said on my couch and thought, at what work? Oh,
Speaker 1: I feel that Nixon? Right, there's I think in a
Speaker 1: wellness space, there's so much feeling that you're a failure
Speaker 1: if you don't adhere to those very strict guidelines. If
Speaker 1: you call meditation sitting in a cafe and you're watching
Speaker 1: people go by or watching the clouds, it's something to
Speaker 1: me that sneaks sensor. So she called it notation. I
Speaker 1: called the Nix and and it's sort of the thing.
Speaker 1: It can be the same thing, just the same way
Speaker 1: watching TV. Right, you can watch TV in a way
Speaker 1: you kind of take in what's happening. You're watching the action.
Speaker 1: You think, Okay, those are great actors, I really like
Speaker 1: this actress, or there's a great movie. And I can
Speaker 1: also kind of think about something else or space out
Speaker 1: in and it goes somewhere in your head and the
Speaker 1: movie will play in the background. Yeah, I found that much.
Speaker 1: Those are too Junison. Yeah, that makes sense. You're not
Speaker 1: get letting it. Um, you're letting your mind wander. And
Speaker 1: I do see what your friend is saying. So she's
Speaker 1: doing a thing but calling it meditation. But I would say,
Speaker 1: as someone who does mindfulness meditation, I do think it's
Speaker 1: different in the sense of when I do mindfulness, I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to wrangle my thoughts back to this one thing. Right,
Speaker 1: And I don't enjoy meditating, but I do it, and
Speaker 1: I have to force myself to sit and do it.
Speaker 1: I'm happy when I've done it. Nixon, I don't have
Speaker 1: to force myself. It's comes naturally. And I love watching
Speaker 1: my mind wander. Um, I don't even feel the pressure
Speaker 1: unlike mindfulness to watch my mind. I don't care. I
Speaker 1: don't even remember what I've just thought, you know, that
Speaker 1: kind of thing, and it is it to me. It
Speaker 1: does feel different. Where like you said, there's no point
Speaker 1: to it, um in the moment. I mean maybe I
Speaker 1: think in life there is a point to it, but
Speaker 1: like in the moment, right, there's no goal. But I
Speaker 1: like how you mentioned wellness because in the book, and
Speaker 1: I'm paraphrasing something you said, but that you know, there's
Speaker 1: a problem in the wellness industry that all of these
Speaker 1: things people are telling us to do, it's really a
Speaker 1: quest for happiness. But it's a process that's devoid of joy.
Speaker 1: And I love that. That's so true. It's kind of
Speaker 1: felt to meet that way. It's all very It's supposed
Speaker 1: to be hard work. Like everything we do is supposed
Speaker 1: to be hard work. Whether we eat, we kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, just make ourselves dinner. You have to be
Speaker 1: it has to be especially prepared, and and we have
Speaker 1: to read labels at the supermarket to make sure that
Speaker 1: no chemicals enter our sacred bodies. And um, we kind
Speaker 1: of just move around. We have to do certain steps
Speaker 1: of exercises, it's all you know, we have to do this,
Speaker 1: we have to do this, and now we could do this.
Speaker 1: And and I like what you said about meditation. I
Speaker 1: think that the differences between like ignacizing and just moving
Speaker 1: for the sake of it. So let's say my brother. Um,
Speaker 1: my brother is very active, very athletic, and he runs
Speaker 1: my marathon sometimes. Yeah, and he says, um, when I
Speaker 1: trained for a marathon, he runs, right. But the idea
Speaker 1: is that he trains for a marathon. That's not Nixon,
Speaker 1: but he just goes for a run because he likes it.
Speaker 1: That would be Nixon. And maybe not Nixon, but least
Speaker 1: what I is what I called in the book, I
Speaker 1: called it the Nixon approach. Yeah right, I forgot about
Speaker 1: that for the Nixon approach, Yeah, which is like just
Speaker 1: because I like it because I like it because it
Speaker 1: feels good. It feels good because I feel like it
Speaker 1: because just because yeah, well it's true. You know, with
Speaker 1: the wellness industry, what I saw expect I was really
Speaker 1: blown away that during lockdown. You know, it was great,
Speaker 1: but so many online exercise places had free yoga and
Speaker 1: free anything, you know whatever. Um, and they would do
Speaker 1: us a thirty day challenge, And I'm like, are we
Speaker 1: still using that language during a global pandemic? And I
Speaker 1: just hate that. I hate wellness and it always has
Speaker 1: these other words involved challenge. Everything has to be contest,
Speaker 1: a competition, you know, instagram worthy. Like you said, cooking dinner,
Speaker 1: you better make it look beautiful because then you have
Speaker 1: to post about it. You know, It's there's just I
Speaker 1: feel like there's just been a lot of like you said,
Speaker 1: joy sucked out of things that we did used to
Speaker 1: do for pleasure, like cooking or even a yoga class
Speaker 1: or something like that, and no one is doing the
Speaker 1: Nixon approach. Yeah, exactly. And my ment problem with the
Speaker 1: wellness industry was basically, you know, if if society is
Speaker 1: perfect and one person has anxiety, that's an individual problem.
Speaker 1: But if so many people have anxiety, then that's not
Speaker 1: an individual problem. That's a social problem, I think. And
Speaker 1: then one that tells us, you know, I have to
Speaker 1: look into yourself and get rid of your own anxiety,
Speaker 1: like it's your problem. Will be right back. Can you
Speaker 1: give me an example? How do you do next? And
Speaker 1: how do you next? So mostly on my couch and
Speaker 1: often while reading, and um, because when I'm reading well,
Speaker 1: I love books, but often when I'm reading, it's I
Speaker 1: read a very nice sentence, just like it's nice words
Speaker 1: put together, and then I need to think about that
Speaker 1: because it's just such a nice sentence or something I've
Speaker 1: read that makes me remember something else that I read
Speaker 1: in a different book that I kind of begin thinking
Speaker 1: about this connection between those two things, or kind of
Speaker 1: I get an idea for another another article or something.
Speaker 1: So it's gonna be often while reading or just saying,
Speaker 1: sitting on my couch, and it's I found very often
Speaker 1: that Nixon, you know, with meditation, um you're told to
Speaker 1: meditate for maybe you know, how half an hour something
Speaker 1: like in this ball park of how you know half
Speaker 1: an hour, it could be longer. Nixon is going to
Speaker 1: be more in between things. For example, I said, you know,
Speaker 1: being a creative and thinking about writing, even if it
Speaker 1: looks like Nix, and it isn't, but it often does
Speaker 1: kind of states you go from nixton to think about work,
Speaker 1: just thinking about your kids, just thinking about something else,
Speaker 1: and maybe if you sit on that couch for you
Speaker 1: don't know, fifteen minutes, maybe a part of it is
Speaker 1: going to be spent Nixon thing. But a part of it,
Speaker 1: it's not and that's something normal I found. I found that,
Speaker 1: at least how that's how my brain works. It just
Speaker 1: jumps from one thought to another. And from what I read,
Speaker 1: that's supposed to be a bust thing, but that's very
Speaker 1: often how I'm I get my best ideas. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: That makes sense because you know as a writer, to
Speaker 1: you there's a like I had a project and I
Speaker 1: had a month to do it, and the first two
Speaker 1: weeks I didn't sit down and type anything, but it
Speaker 1: wasn't procrastination. It feels very different in my body. So
Speaker 1: the first two weeks is very buzzy and creative. I
Speaker 1: can just feel it in my soul. But part of
Speaker 1: my creative process is to not right right away, and
Speaker 1: then sometimes when I put off writing, we're getting now
Speaker 1: into procrastination. And that brings me to something that you
Speaker 1: talked about in your book as well, which is that
Speaker 1: there are three types of procrastinators, and one of them
Speaker 1: is the anxious procrastinator, and that's me. And so if
Speaker 1: you can I think we'll stick with that one because
Speaker 1: it's an anxiety pocket if you can talk to us
Speaker 1: about I just we kind of just naturally jumped here.
Speaker 1: But I have so much to get back to you.
Speaker 1: But if you can talk about what is an anxious procrastinator?
Speaker 1: But how can practicing Nixon help with that? Yeah, so
Speaker 1: that's not my kind of UM like, I wrother about this,
Speaker 1: but yeah, the person who told me about it was
Speaker 1: Christian Reuben. Oh yeah, I found an article of hers
Speaker 1: where she said that the way she fights procrastination is
Speaker 1: by telling herself, Okay, either you do the work, are
Speaker 1: you don't do anything? Those are the two choices. You
Speaker 1: do what you're supposed to do. You do the work,
Speaker 1: you're right, Are you kind of do the re podcast
Speaker 1: or whatever? Or you do nothing. You don't go organize
Speaker 1: your bookshelf, you don't go, you know, cook dinner. You
Speaker 1: don't do that. Wow. And her point is that at
Speaker 1: some point the the just the idea of not doing
Speaker 1: anything and sitting there, it's become so unbearable and you
Speaker 1: started working. But not that's not what anxious procrastinators do.
Speaker 1: I think what they do is, well, they have a
Speaker 1: um deadline brooming and uh like the project seems so
Speaker 1: big and overwhelming that they feel they kind of do it,
Speaker 1: but they want to few productive, so instead they're gonna
Speaker 1: go and organize their bookshelves. Yeah, that that that's definitely relatable.
Speaker 1: I love that because, yeah, if you choose to do nothing,
Speaker 1: it probably will open up your creativity a little bit.
Speaker 1: And then eventually you'll just get sick of doing nothing
Speaker 1: and you have to go do the other thing. If
Speaker 1: you can really stick to those two rules, you know.
Speaker 1: But do you think that that it can help um,
Speaker 1: you know, creative people with the thought process to just
Speaker 1: kind of I feel like if it's almost like a computer,
Speaker 1: like every once in a while, if you just don't
Speaker 1: turn your computer off for even ten minutes a day,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's getting hot, it's overheating. Things get slower.
Speaker 1: I mean, is there is there a benefit that doesn't
Speaker 1: happen in the moment that happens later if we practice
Speaker 1: doing nothing and I don't even know how often how
Speaker 1: many minutes a day we're supposed to do it? So
Speaker 1: how long and how often should we do it? And
Speaker 1: then what are the benefits that show up later? Yes?
Speaker 1: So I cannot tell you how often or how long,
Speaker 1: just as as long as you can kind of bear it,
Speaker 1: or as long as you're able to. And maybe if
Speaker 1: you look at your at what you're doing during the day,
Speaker 1: you'll find that you might actually spend more time doing
Speaker 1: nothing than you think. Um, not really, we kind of
Speaker 1: there's are cause these small moments that we tend to
Speaker 1: look over because they're not productive or we think they're
Speaker 1: not productive, which speaking as productivity, I spoke to productivity
Speaker 1: experts and was still, look, we know that we've our
Speaker 1: bodies work all day long in some capacity, running, jumping,
Speaker 1: pushing stuff, picking up stuff. It gets tired. Everybodies get tired,
Speaker 1: and we need to eat, and we need to drink,
Speaker 1: and we need breaks. But when it comes to mind,
Speaker 1: I think the expectation is that we're supposed to if
Speaker 1: we're at work and working in a kind of office
Speaker 1: sort of environment and you know nine job, we are
Speaker 1: expected to for for our brains to work that whole time. Right,
Speaker 1: We don't think, oh, you know, maybe if our bodies
Speaker 1: need a break, maybe our brains do too. So we
Speaker 1: kind of expect people to give all throughout all that.
Speaker 1: You know, I eat plus hours day at work and
Speaker 1: that's not that's not feasible, that's not possible. And I
Speaker 1: know for myself when I spend too long writing an
Speaker 1: article I end up writing nonsense like things. I read
Speaker 1: it later and it was wasted time because things make
Speaker 1: no sense. It would have been much better for me
Speaker 1: to stop too. If I feel myself getting tired or
Speaker 1: feel that I'm missing words, of forgetting words or kind
Speaker 1: of find the right word, that would be a good
Speaker 1: moment to get up and do something else and maybe
Speaker 1: do nothing, or read a book, or make myself some tea,
Speaker 1: or go for a walk, or go for a bicycle ride,
Speaker 1: do something that's not connected to this kind of intensive
Speaker 1: thinking that that's involved in writing or maybe also in
Speaker 1: you know, office type of job, because many of us
Speaker 1: work in those kind of we work with our brains,
Speaker 1: many of us. Yeah, if we take breaks throughout the day,
Speaker 1: we actually feel more productive and when we get more
Speaker 1: done in a short amount of time, which is a
Speaker 1: bit paradoxical. But I think like old productivity experts I
Speaker 1: talked to, they say the same thing. You know, and
Speaker 1: people start eating lunch at their desk. Now, so they're eating,
Speaker 1: but there's no break. You know, they're not sitting in
Speaker 1: the sun and enjoying food, and and you know, honestly,
Speaker 1: too bad. It was linked to something that's bad for
Speaker 1: your health smoking. But I would imagine that smokers had
Speaker 1: this built in Nixon, you know, seven minutes a day,
Speaker 1: seven minutes at a time, a few times a day,
Speaker 1: you know, you take your smoke break. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, if you were a smoker and had to
Speaker 1: go take a smoke break, that would still be acceptable.
Speaker 1: But if you said I need to stand outside and
Speaker 1: do nothing for seven minutes, I think people would think
Speaker 1: you were lazy. You know, yeah, exactly, exactly. And it's
Speaker 1: not even about you know, just a small change of scenery,
Speaker 1: even if you go from your office to the cafe
Speaker 1: or something that's already something. So productivity is one big
Speaker 1: benefit of doing nothing, and the other one we talked
Speaker 1: about increased creativity. There's even us super interesting study that
Speaker 1: I mentioned in the book um done with fm arai machines,
Speaker 1: where one group of people was told to do nothing
Speaker 1: or just enjoy your thoughts. The other group was told
Speaker 1: to kind of um silver task, maybe a crossbord puzzle
Speaker 1: or something. And the expectation is what what was our
Speaker 1: brains are either active or they're not active. What it
Speaker 1: turned out, however, was that the group that did nothing
Speaker 1: they had rain areas very specific very wide reaching brain
Speaker 1: areas light up in the FM array machines and actually
Speaker 1: in the people who did the task. The brain activity
Speaker 1: decreased and the brain areas that come to light during
Speaker 1: doing nothing. It's called the default mode network, and it
Speaker 1: may be responsible for creativity. So we we can access
Speaker 1: the default mode network by doing nothing, but we're not
Speaker 1: accessing it really when we're focused on a task. Is
Speaker 1: that it? Yeah, that's one way to put it. The
Speaker 1: way I explained it in the book was that if
Speaker 1: we do a task, the brain sends energy to the
Speaker 1: areas that are needed for doing a task. So for example,
Speaker 1: and a cross worre a puzzle, it would probably send
Speaker 1: energy to like your language center something right, if you're
Speaker 1: if it was as kind of thing, it would send
Speaker 1: an energy to parts of the brain that are responsible
Speaker 1: for numbers. But maybe if we're not doing anything, it
Speaker 1: just looked like, Okay, it looks like I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe like a rain scan that doesn't really focus on
Speaker 1: one area. So I'm just interested in the cultural differences too,
Speaker 1: because I was just thinking we were talking about the office.
Speaker 1: You know, so many people have offices at their place
Speaker 1: of work. I don't mean in their home, and there's
Speaker 1: always a couch in the office, there's some kind of
Speaker 1: comfy chair. I have never seen anyone actually sit in it.
Speaker 1: I think if you walked by someone not sitting at
Speaker 1: their desk and just sitting in their comfy chair in
Speaker 1: their office staring off into space, you might think, what's wrong.
Speaker 1: You know, something's wrong. They're upset. It's just so not
Speaker 1: a thing I see. Um. I know, at one point
Speaker 1: when I was working day jobs when I was younger,
Speaker 1: there was a big thing of, you know, hell, let's
Speaker 1: have fun things in the office, ping pong tables, things
Speaker 1: like that. But again it was always something we're doing,
Speaker 1: keeping busy, and there was never just sit there, maybe
Speaker 1: stretch a little. And I think in America we're still
Speaker 1: not there yet. You know. Um, there's this. I think
Speaker 1: a lot of businesses are struggling with the fact that
Speaker 1: their employees are loving working from home, you know, and
Speaker 1: bosses like to see you. I want to see you
Speaker 1: sitting at a desk, even if you're not doing anything.
Speaker 1: You know, And so is that different. Are you're in
Speaker 1: the Netherlands right, Yes, I'm in the Netherlands. So is
Speaker 1: it inherently different? I think I have this fantasy that
Speaker 1: everywhere but America knows how to do nothing better and
Speaker 1: where where where? Um ashamed of it? And even if
Speaker 1: we do do it, we're shamed of it. We hide it.
Speaker 1: It's not part of our culture. We don't have a
Speaker 1: cs to, we don't have you know, built in things
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah. Well, I I don't know. When I
Speaker 1: first wrote about Nixon, I had many Dutch to reach
Speaker 1: out to me and say, oh, but the Netherlands, we're
Speaker 1: so busy. And it's probably true the Dutch, but probably
Speaker 1: busier on the used to be I guess, but um, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's I think they're they're definitely um differences in like
Speaker 1: working culture. How in the Adalance, for example, you may
Speaker 1: not be like applauded for staying a work late. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, just be normal, go home, that's great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the normal is a big thing you're in. It's like
Speaker 1: they have a saying be normal. It's already crazy enough.
Speaker 1: That's great. Depending I guess on what they're saying normal is.
Speaker 1: But if normal is going home on time or early,
Speaker 1: I love it. Yeah, it's it's often kind of Um.
Speaker 1: I think the golden golden rule is it's a good
Speaker 1: way to put it how you supposed like you're you're
Speaker 1: expected to work but not too much. Yeah, it's really
Speaker 1: different here because if you um leave on time, which
Speaker 1: is now considered early. Yeah, if you better have kids
Speaker 1: or an emergency or a spouse, and so single people
Speaker 1: without kids are are always seen as well, what do
Speaker 1: you possibly have going on? You know, if you're leaving
Speaker 1: work right now, and and again it's it's um, we're
Speaker 1: just not there yet. And also the busy mom, the
Speaker 1: busy dad that's leaving. I mean, I don't think they
Speaker 1: should only be allowed to leave because of their kids either,
Speaker 1: you know, it should be I'd like to leave it
Speaker 1: five because I've done my work for the day and
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna sit until six just because everyone else's.
Speaker 1: But I think the underlying thing is that everyone needs
Speaker 1: to read this book. And I feel like corporations almost
Speaker 1: need to hire nix and experts or something. I feel
Speaker 1: like we have to normalize this as part of working
Speaker 1: in the same way that crops have down seasons. You know,
Speaker 1: this is part you know, if the type of person
Speaker 1: needs it presented to them in a way that they
Speaker 1: can relate to, it's part of productivity, you know. But
Speaker 1: I do think you said that in some cultures, definitely America.
Speaker 1: You said nothing is a negative work, right, Yeah, what is?
Speaker 1: It can't connotes what laziness or something. Yeah, doing nothing
Speaker 1: like either. So for example, I imagine a scene where
Speaker 1: you know, at work, someone is I don't know, browsing
Speaker 1: Facebook and the free time or something, or in a break,
Speaker 1: and then someone comes in there and what you do
Speaker 1: nothing because you know, I'm doing something not connected to work,
Speaker 1: So I'm ashamed of it or embarrassed in some way,
Speaker 1: and I'd rather not tell them writing Facebook. Although, like
Speaker 1: you mentioned, you know America. But I found the guilt
Speaker 1: over doing nothing was pretty much universal, like all of
Speaker 1: the world. And maybe if it wasn't work, then it
Speaker 1: was guilt or we're not spending more time with family,
Speaker 1: it was guilt over being a that parent, it was
Speaker 1: guilt over not attending religious um ceremonies or traditions. Um.
Speaker 1: So I think this guilt when when people said and
Speaker 1: did nothing, was universal all over the world. I was
Speaker 1: actually pretty surprised about this. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: in pretty much every language there was something. It wasn't
Speaker 1: always doing nothing, yeah, but it was something very similar.
Speaker 1: So and you tell you which is like sweet, doing nothing,
Speaker 1: or even in English, you could say doing sweet sweet
Speaker 1: nothing or lazy Sunday afternoon. And they they they say
Speaker 1: something positive about, you know, spending your lazy Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 1: It is actually a very nice thing. Yes, so it's
Speaker 1: not always described in negative ways. That makes sense, I know,
Speaker 1: and I want more than a lazy Sunday afternoon. I
Speaker 1: want laziness built in every day as part of my day.
Speaker 1: And you know, you've mentioned too that we might be wired.
Speaker 1: You said in your book that we're kind of wired
Speaker 1: for laziness inherently. What what does that mean exactly? We're
Speaker 1: we're almost wired for nixt and it is a natural
Speaker 1: state for us. Yes, so it isn't. It isn't because well,
Speaker 1: imagine if you're a hunter gatherer and you kind of
Speaker 1: you probably are spending lots of time catching food, preparing
Speaker 1: would making tools, doing lots of stuff. And at the
Speaker 1: same time, you know that you can get eaten by
Speaker 1: a last there were too s tiger or something any moments.
Speaker 1: So if you don't work hard, you have you have
Speaker 1: no food. Right, If you make tools, it takes a
Speaker 1: lot of time because you're you know, you can't. You
Speaker 1: don't have machines for that, and and so we're wired
Speaker 1: for hard work. But like there was a study done
Speaker 1: by this French guy, um he actually checked if people
Speaker 1: were like the people, the choice between the stairs and
Speaker 1: the elevator, what would they choose? And most people choose
Speaker 1: the elevator, not the stairs. Right, that's my people in
Speaker 1: a place in the Netherlands. They do bike a lot,
Speaker 1: but usually if you get the choice, you know, between
Speaker 1: driving and walking, you're probably gonna drive. So we actually
Speaker 1: like how you go, like choosing the easiest, laziest way
Speaker 1: to do stuff to get places. Yeah, that's good to
Speaker 1: hear that that it's not like we're going against our
Speaker 1: nature by practicing doing nothing. Like I I will look
Speaker 1: at a day I've had and I'll go, well, I
Speaker 1: did some yoga dismanitation, but I still feel I like
Speaker 1: a computer that's overheating and I'm ten minutes sometimes of
Speaker 1: just zoning out is enough to bring me back to
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is, it just built up
Speaker 1: over time. It really does something that's that's good to
Speaker 1: hear because I also talked about this with with psychologists
Speaker 1: for for my book, and what she said was but
Speaker 1: there's a whole chapter on when Nixon is not a
Speaker 1: good idea. And she said, you know, if you're very
Speaker 1: anxious and you kind of bring yourself down to like
Speaker 1: a state of relative calm, or at least not where
Speaker 1: you're not super anxious, Nixon might not feel good for you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So she said there are people who kind of start
Speaker 1: doing nothing. They keep getting antsy because it feels not
Speaker 1: very nice in their bodies. And she said for them,
Speaker 1: maybe a better idea would be too kind of do
Speaker 1: you a scrap book or cook something, or do something
Speaker 1: that's kind of approach. It is super popular, um coloring
Speaker 1: for adults, stuff like that that's kind of slow. It
Speaker 1: doesn't engage your brain too much. I can engage is
Speaker 1: your hands, but not your brain so much. So you're
Speaker 1: kind of paying attention by not paying attention, which may
Speaker 1: have the same benefits like Nix, and but not feel
Speaker 1: like they're feeling okay, my husbands are busy, so I'm
Speaker 1: doing something which is good. And she said that in
Speaker 1: her center for kind of stress, she's getting people to
Speaker 1: walk slowly to get their heart shade kind of slow
Speaker 1: down a bit. And so but it's good to hear
Speaker 1: that it can work for, you know, people with anxiety. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I can, and I think you're ready. Think
Speaker 1: it depends on the kind of person. Some people don't,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to be alone with their thoughts
Speaker 1: because their thoughts may be attacking them and it might
Speaker 1: be really uncomfortable. And thank god I don't have that
Speaker 1: so much. When I sit and do nothing, it feels
Speaker 1: right to me. Um, I think if it didn't, I
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't do it. But I I yeah, that makes sense.
Speaker 1: But like you said at the beginning, they're cooking or
Speaker 1: coloring with the Nixon approach, which is for no reason
Speaker 1: except to you know, maybe slow down a little bit.
Speaker 1: But it's not to achieve something. They're not going to
Speaker 1: sell that, you know, the thing they colored in a
Speaker 1: museum or enter it into a contest. I was so
Speaker 1: into a friend about this, about this kind of how
Speaker 1: you expected to monetize hobbies, Like any time you kind
Speaker 1: of paint something or draw something or take a picture,
Speaker 1: you go, let you should sell doge It's yeah, it's
Speaker 1: really it's the way my mind works too. Well. Why
Speaker 1: would I take piano lessons? I mean, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to become a professional piano player. It's like, jeez, I
Speaker 1: can't you know, I catch myself thinking things like that,
Speaker 1: like how about just because I enjoy it? You know? Yeah,
Speaker 1: anxiety bites will be right back after a quick little
Speaker 1: message from one of our sponsors. You mentioned in your
Speaker 1: book emotional labor, and I've I've heard this term a
Speaker 1: lot um and it really dawned on me how much
Speaker 1: of our thoughts our emotional labor. And so you said,
Speaker 1: Nixon is definitely not sitting around thinking and planning dinner
Speaker 1: and how you're going to pick up the kids and
Speaker 1: where are they gonna go to college and wondering blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, like and you said, women are are
Speaker 1: constantly just the way our brains work. If we're taking
Speaker 1: care of family, especially, we're constantly doing emotional labor in
Speaker 1: our heads. And that is not Nixon, No, and it's
Speaker 1: not in human to women. We just kind of socialized
Speaker 1: like that we can't take it on then then we
Speaker 1: kind of stop in some way. And I again, I
Speaker 1: was just so fascinated but this idea that there's there
Speaker 1: are types of work that looks like doing nothing but aren't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and there's also this way we tend to as
Speaker 1: a society, we tend to view men's and women's work
Speaker 1: in time differently. So a man a man's time. For example,
Speaker 1: if you have a guy sitting on the couch, you'd go,
Speaker 1: he's thinking big important thoughts for his next big novel,
Speaker 1: or he's resting because he has such a hard day
Speaker 1: at work. And imagine a woman, um, in the same position,
Speaker 1: sitting around on the couch doing nothing, and and you go, oh,
Speaker 1: are her kids wise in the house? Clean? Um. And
Speaker 1: there's this book I read called Overwhelmed, and an expert
Speaker 1: quoted in the book said, this is why to get
Speaker 1: free time. This is why women became nuns. Like literally,
Speaker 1: it was the only place where they could do nothing.
Speaker 1: And women protect men's time, Like I was saying, No,
Speaker 1: a mom would say to the kids, you know, don't
Speaker 1: interrupt add he's resting, or he's thinking, or he's working
Speaker 1: or something. Men protect their own time as well. No
Speaker 1: one protects women's sign Oh my god, mind blown over here,
Speaker 1: I know. So it's like there's this idea that whatever
Speaker 1: it is, a woman can always be interrupted. And I
Speaker 1: read somewhere, I'm not sure which book that was. How
Speaker 1: men's son is considered limited and therefore valuable, whereas women's
Speaker 1: sim is considered endless and therefore you know, there's so
Speaker 1: much of it that we can all get a piece
Speaker 1: of it or some part of it. But it's hard
Speaker 1: on men too, because they feel if they're not producing, providing, working,
Speaker 1: doing something, they're not being valuable somehow. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of very ingrained in there. I mean, of course, not
Speaker 1: all men, but many many do so it's it's hard
Speaker 1: for both genders. So that brings me my last question.
Speaker 1: And these are like my type A questions about Nixon,
Speaker 1: because I know anyone listening might be kind of a
Speaker 1: type anxiety person. Go okay, well wait, can you do
Speaker 1: Nixon with another person? Can you and your husband or
Speaker 1: sister or best friends saying let's sit together and do
Speaker 1: some Nixon or does it not work that way? Well? No,
Speaker 1: I was surprised to hear that it could work that way.
Speaker 1: You know, two people sitting next to each other and
Speaker 1: each one is reading their book. Yeah, right, so that's
Speaker 1: not exactly Nixon, but it's not. It's it's it's a
Speaker 1: quiet activity done together. Yeah, mostly like a thing you
Speaker 1: do for yourself. So the same way you could kind
Speaker 1: of Nix together with your husband or sister or our
Speaker 1: spouse or something like why not sit in chilence together?
Speaker 1: That would be like Nixon. That sounds lovely. Oh um.
Speaker 1: And then can you planet, like, can I put in
Speaker 1: my calendar from one to two, I have a meeting
Speaker 1: on zoom from two to three I'm going to try
Speaker 1: to do some Nixon Or is that defeating the purpose? No,
Speaker 1: you could do like they're you know, it all depends
Speaker 1: on what sort of person you are. And many people
Speaker 1: benefit from having like an agenda in our calendar something
Speaker 1: and putting their stuff in there, and what goes on
Speaker 1: the agenda gets done or not not done in case
Speaker 1: of things soon, so like they know, if it's on there,
Speaker 1: it's important, so it has to be taking care of.
Speaker 1: So it doesn't it doesn't rely on spontaneity. It could
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, is it It could? It could be organized,
Speaker 1: it could be planned, but it could be some spontaneous
Speaker 1: depending on what sort of person you are. Ye, and
Speaker 1: there are people um, so for example, I found a
Speaker 1: great time for Nixon is when you're waiting for something
Speaker 1: or someone. I do it sometimes when I'm traveling somewhere
Speaker 1: on a train or bus and I and I may
Speaker 1: have a book with me, but sometimes I don't. And
Speaker 1: then I just gaze out of the window and look
Speaker 1: at the class and look at this how the landscape
Speaker 1: is changing. And that's sort of nixed in too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There was a day that I was in line, I'm
Speaker 1: really long line at a store and I had out
Speaker 1: in my phone in my car and it was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, what do I do? You know, And
Speaker 1: I didn't have a book or a magazine and I
Speaker 1: just stood there and you know, I used to do
Speaker 1: that before there was a phone in my hand all
Speaker 1: the time, and I it was weird. I just stood there.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what else to say. I stood
Speaker 1: there and I don't remember anything I thought. I just
Speaker 1: kind of looked at people, and you know, I survived.
Speaker 1: I lived to tell the tale of spending ten minutes
Speaker 1: without my phone. But um, I never thought of that
Speaker 1: right as Nixon, But that that's a great way to
Speaker 1: practice it too. I think if people are thinking of
Speaker 1: starting a practice of adding more NIX into their life,
Speaker 1: like the little ways you can do at are these
Speaker 1: moments where we'd normally stare at our phone or you know,
Speaker 1: something like that. It's like, see if you can last
Speaker 1: five minutes in line at the bank or something, just
Speaker 1: do nothing. Well, I think that's all my questions for you.
Speaker 1: What is there anything I hate this question because it's
Speaker 1: so not Nixon, But do you have, um, anything coming
Speaker 1: up on the horizon that involves Nixon, Um, more professional
Speaker 1: things or another book coming out about something different? Um
Speaker 1: not at the moment um, I would kind of I'm
Speaker 1: working on like like a parenting book kind of thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I read it's kind of I started out as
Speaker 1: a parenting by doing and then kind of Nixon was
Speaker 1: a bit of an exception, you a way that I
Speaker 1: wrote it and then it went so big and um,
Speaker 1: there's a Facebook group called the Nixon News. Oh I
Speaker 1: love that. Okay, people are joining that, Yeah, yeah, join us.
Speaker 1: I made up like I was saying, how to call
Speaker 1: a person because it does nothing, and I thought Nixon,
Speaker 1: you sounds nice like Musquito, but for Nixon. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: love that. Oh that's great. Okay, So we'll look for
Speaker 1: your writing. I'm sure people will want to read your
Speaker 1: parenting book, um, especially if they've loved your book about Nix.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure it'll be equally insightful. Um, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. I I love your book. It's on my
Speaker 1: coffee table. I buy this as UM gifts for people
Speaker 1: on their birthday. I think everyone needs. Everyone needs to
Speaker 1: read it and just have it. It's really fun to
Speaker 1: flip through. It's it's really really um intelligent and and
Speaker 1: like you said, there are just so many studies in it.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's really a pretty scientific book as well,
Speaker 1: even though it's a really fun read. So I geek
Speaker 1: out of it. I think, yeah, I geek out on
Speaker 1: it too. I I'm so glad that what I do
Speaker 1: a lot is actually there's a name for it. And
Speaker 1: I like to think it's good for me and the
Speaker 1: name for it. It's it's important for people who like
Speaker 1: to kind of oh that's what it is, even if
Speaker 1: it's another in a different language. I think having like
Speaker 1: one word for a certain state of mind or activity
Speaker 1: or emotion even, Yeah, it's important for for some people.
Speaker 1: Do you have that to kind to be able to
Speaker 1: recognize it? Oh, this is what I do. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it's always good on something as a name. And if
Speaker 1: I may just go a little crazy here, I will
Speaker 1: say that it's a real revolutionary act against all of
Speaker 1: the capitalism in the world that we were talking about earlier.
Speaker 1: People just thinking they can't do a hobby or else
Speaker 1: they have to sell it. You know, it's like it's
Speaker 1: very revolutionary to just opt out for even a few
Speaker 1: minutes a day and just say no, I'm just doing nothing.
Speaker 1: So hopefully it helps a lot of people during this
Speaker 1: really anxious time in the world. And thank you so
Speaker 1: much for coming on my show. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for having me. Was a pleasure. Thanks for listening to
Speaker 1: another episode of Anxiety Bites. Okay, before you do Nixon,
Speaker 1: before you practice the art of doing nothing, hip Apple
Speaker 1: podcast and give this podcast a five star review. That
Speaker 1: would mean the world to me. And you can follow
Speaker 1: me on the social media stuff Twitter at Jen Kirkman,
Speaker 1: j E n k I r K m A and
Speaker 1: Instagram same exact handle, And if you love the show,
Speaker 1: please tag me in your Instagram stories and if you're
Speaker 1: on Twitter, you can use the hashtag Anxiety Bites podcast.
Speaker 1: But please do use those handles to tell me how
Speaker 1: much you love the show. It really helps, and then
Speaker 1: I can repost or retweet you and everyone that follows
Speaker 1: me will be like, oh my God, what are these
Speaker 1: people talking about? Let me get into this Anxiety Bites podcast. Now,
Speaker 1: let's get into the takeaways. So the Dutch have one
Speaker 1: word to describe doing nothing, and the word is Nixon.
Speaker 1: Nixon literally means doing nothing, to do nothing. Part one
Speaker 1: of practicing the art of Nixon is really to do nothing.
Speaker 1: You're not checking Facebook, you're not reading emails, and number two,
Speaker 1: doing whatever the nothing that it is you're doing without
Speaker 1: a purpose. So let's say you want to take a walk. Okay,
Speaker 1: it doesn't mean you have to sit still and just
Speaker 1: sit there. You can take a walk. You can practice
Speaker 1: the art of Nixon with walking, but there's no purpose.
Speaker 1: You're not trying to get your steps in. You're not
Speaker 1: thinking about losing when you're not going and we're just walking.
Speaker 1: Because let's say, for example, you're a marathon runner. If
Speaker 1: you're training for a marathon, you're not practicing Nixon. But
Speaker 1: if you're just going for a run because you like it,
Speaker 1: you're practicing Nixon. The wellness industry is very individualized care
Speaker 1: and it tells us you have to look into yourself
Speaker 1: and get rid of your own issues, as though everything
Speaker 1: is your problem and not a societal problem. And that's
Speaker 1: where the wellness industry can let us down. Productivity experts
Speaker 1: know that our bodies work all day long in some
Speaker 1: capacity doing physical things. Our bodies get tired and we
Speaker 1: need a break. We need to eat, we need to drink,
Speaker 1: we need to sleep. When it comes to the mind,
Speaker 1: sometimes feels like the expectation is we're just supposed to work, work, work, work, work,
Speaker 1: but that's not feasible. If we take breaks throughout the day,
Speaker 1: we actually do feel more productive and might get more
Speaker 1: done in a shorter amount of time. But according to
Speaker 1: the productivity experts, it sounds paradoxical, but it is true.
Speaker 1: Product activity is one big benefit of doing nothing for
Speaker 1: a little while and increased creativity. There's even a study
Speaker 1: that shows with f m r I machines, one group
Speaker 1: of people were told to do nothing and just enjoy
Speaker 1: their thoughts, and the other people were told to solve
Speaker 1: a task or do a crossword puzzle. And the people
Speaker 1: doing a crossboard puzzle the area of the m r I,
Speaker 1: you know that goes to the part of the brain
Speaker 1: that you need to function and do the puzzle. It
Speaker 1: was all lit up. But the people who are just
Speaker 1: kind of doing nothing and enjoying their thoughts or entire
Speaker 1: brain lit up. Nixon does not have to be spontaneous.
Speaker 1: You can schedule your Nixon and you can do Nixon
Speaker 1: with someone else. So basically the takeaway is there's really
Speaker 1: no rules. You'll know in your heart when you're really
Speaker 1: doing nothing, or when you're sitting there worrying about things
Speaker 1: you have to do or watching TV, but really not
Speaker 1: letting your mind just totally wander and letting yourself enjoy
Speaker 1: just being yourself. And hey, you know what, it might
Speaker 1: be a creative way to feel less anxious if we
Speaker 1: just let ourselves be every once in a while and
Speaker 1: not feel like we have to be striving for something.
Speaker 1: We sort of teach ourselves that is okay to not
Speaker 1: be in constant pursuit of something. That's definitely what I
Speaker 1: want to do more of in two and I challenge
Speaker 1: you too, in a non challenging way, do the same,
Speaker 1: except for writing that five star iTunes review that's very important.
Speaker 1: Thanks again, and remember anxiety bites, but you're in control.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.