‘Niksen’ is the Dutch art of doing nothing

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15th Jul 2019

It is well documented that our screen time is not without serious repercussions. Blue light emissions can be damaging to the skin, technology overuse can promote antisocial behaviour, and frequent monitoring of our social media or our emails can make it hard to disconnect, switch off and unwind.

As a digital generation, we have a difficult time sitting comfortably in our offline realities, and sometimes meditation or exercise just won’t do the trick.

Enter ‘Niksen’: a concept born in the Netherlands, ‘Niksen’ is the practice of doing nothing that gives us permission to be idle, designed to help cope with stress and combat burnout. As told to Time, managing director of CRS Centrum (a training centre that specialises in helping clients to alleviate stress) Carolein Hamming translates Niksen as “literally to do nothing, to be idle or doing something without purpose”.

Sound familiar? Think again. Niksen is a positive, guilt-free practice detached from the negative connotations of procrastinating. Rather, Hamming emphasises that however you choose to action Niksen in your day-to-day life, it can only be successfully achieved “as long as it’s without purpose” and is not intended to arouse feelings of laziness or poor time management.

In practice, one can perform Niksen—or ‘niks’, which means to do nothing—by simply gazing out of a window or relaxing in bed. Unlike mindfulness, which promotes engagement in the present, niksing is about freeing the mind to wander at will.

As per Time, director of training at the Greater Good Science Center at the University of California, Berkeley, Eve Ekman explains that Niksen can have a host of positive effects. Not just a coping mechanism to help reduce or eliminate stress entirely, regular practice can help fight against ageing and help the body ward off diseases like the common cold.

In the same breath, Ekman explains that when practicing Niksen, we must be conscious of where our thoughts wander. “We need to train our minds to wander in a way that’s imaginative and creative,” she says, highlighting that we must ensure we do not veer into negative thoughts that will make the exercise counterproductive.

While the objective of Niksen may seem undoubtedly simple—to make time, not kill time and just spend it being—the Dutch practice is harder than it sounds. But, if you can perfect this art of doing nothing, the potential payoff is huge, and will no doubt help maximise productivity when the time comes to perform. 

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