December is here — a season of celebration, reflection, and let’s be honest… a lot of doing. Shopping, cooking, hosting, wrapping, emailing, card-writing, list-making, cleaning, traveling (sometimes all before noon!). No matter which holidays you celebrate, this time of year can feel like a marathon of motion.
So this week’s Smart Bite is an invitation to slow the spin. I’m sharing a Dutch wellness practice called niksen. Niksen literally means doing nothing. Not multitasking. Not optimizing. Not squeezing in “just one more thing.” Simply... nothing.
What Exactly Is Niksen?
Niksen is the deliberate practice of being without doing. Think of it as stepping out of the stream of productivity for a moment and letting yourself drift. Unlike mindfulness meditation, where you gently guide your attention, niksen has no goal, no technique, and no mental choreography. It's relaxed, aimless, unstructured time.
In other words, if meditation is a 10-minute guided audio, niksen is staring at a cloud shaped like a dinosaur and remembering nothing about the last five minutes.
What Niksen Isn’t
Niksen is not laziness, avoidance, or procrastination dressed up in a cozy sweater. It isn’t zoning out on your phone (that’s scrolling), finishing a podcast (that’s consuming), or practicing breathwork (that’s a technique).
It’s also not something you need to be “good” at, which is actually the point. Niksen resists achievement culture. You can’t ace it, optimize it, or track it on your smartwatch.
This is precisely what makes some people uncomfortable (and why it’s worth trying).
Why Doing Nothing Helps Us Do Better
Paradoxically, “doing nothing” is a quiet productivity tool. Research on mind-wandering suggests that unstructured mental drift supports creativity, problem-solving, stress recovery, and emotional regulation. Niksen gives the brain a breather, a kind of “pause between the push.”
Think of it as letting your mental snow globe settle. The ideas, clarity, and calm that rise afterward often surprise us.
How to Practice Niksen (a Few Fun Examples)
Niksen works best when it’s simple, unimportant, and delightfully ordinary. A few possibilities:
Stare out a window and watch the light change
Sit on the couch and let your mind roam wherever it wants
Lie on the floor for three minutes and look at the ceiling
Watch steam rise from your mug
Sit on a park bench with no headphones, no book, and no purpose
Pet the dog without trying to train the dog (Bella approves)
If it feels like “you’re not doing anything,” congratulations! You're succeeding.
A Holiday Permission Slip
As the season ramps up, give yourself permission to step away from the hustle. The Dutch don’t wait for vacations to recharge; they build tiny pockets of niksen into daily life. You can, too.
And maybe, just maybe, the most restorative gift you give yourself this December is a moment of absolutely nothing.