I went on a cruise on the Thames. Days of silence and admiring the magical landscape, small villages along the river gave a relaxed atmosphere, pubs and a few sweet second-hand shops. Some people told me that a week without doing anything sounded terrible. They said they couldn't sit still, that they had to constantly be doing something. But I already understood that in order to move well, you have to rest well.
We live in a time when everything has to be "optimized," everything has to be at its maximum. The body, the diet, the sleep, the appearance, the career, even the personality. It's called "Maxxing." In contrast to the culture of maximizing, an almost opposite concept is growing, called "Wakeful Rest." This approach reminds us that not every free moment has to be filled and that sometimes, out of silence, development occurs.
push Even more. Reach the maximum
There is a very Israeli moment that is familiar to all of us. We are standing at a crosswalk, the traffic light is red, there are maybe thirty seconds left until the green, and the hand, without thinking, is sent to the phone. WhatsApp, news, Facebook, a short video, TikTok, a message that needs to be answered. Just don't stand there and wait without doing anything. In the late 80s and early 90s, a commercial for a cellular company played on the radio that said: "Turn a lost hour into an hour of work." And since then, we haven't rested. We stand in line for something, phone in hand. Waiting for someone, phone in hand. Sitting in a cafe and looking at the phone. Even while driving, instead of giving our heads a few minutes of silence, we put more podcasts, more news, and more information into it, as if there is a fear within us that if we don't do something, even for a few minutes, we are wasting our lives.
In recent years, a term that originated on the Internet has entered the language. Everyone is "maxing." That is, everyone, or at least most people, are involved in trying to maximize one or more traits, or a specific area that they identify with themselves. The origin of the term is in the world of gaming, the world of computer games. Min-max means that players try to maximize desired traits and minimize their character's weaknesses. From the world of gaming, the term migrated to Internet culture and took on a life of its own.
This is how maximizing appearance was born, injections and surgeries and stretch marks and implants. The main thing is to maximize the appearance to the figure that the person believes makes him more beautiful, more attractive. After it came names like health maximizing, which brought dietary methods, some of which are extreme, the use of supplements, addiction to sports, and maximizing fiber, protein, maximizing sleep and several other maximizings, with the common idea in all of them being that if something in life can be improved, it is worth taking it to the extreme. To the maximum. To push more and more. To increase, add, enhance, engineer, and other words that say there is no peace and you constantly have to work on "maxing". Experts from Ohio State University recently warned against the phenomenon, especially when health advice distributed online turns from reasonable practices into extreme behaviors that are not necessarily based on research. But it turns out that the brain does not necessarily agree with this path.
Stop and take a moment of silence.
Does wanting to be healthier really make us healthier, or are we simply learning to be more self-absorbed, and is endless self-improvement becoming yet another source of stress? These are questions that have been raised recently. Let there be no misunderstanding, there is nothing wrong with wanting to eat better, exercise, sleep well, look good, or take care of ourselves. But when “good” is not enough, and the estimates of what is better than good concern marketing interests dressed up as sound advice, or as an imitation of a passing fad propagated by social influencers, it can be problematic.
Trying to be the healthiest, the thinnest, the strongest, the youngest, the most efficient, the most beautiful, and so on, can lead to obsessive self-preoccupation and a life of constant stress and dissatisfaction. When we feel like we're not at our best yet, that we haven't pushed ourselves to the limit, we may think we need another supplement, another workout, another app, another cosmetic treatment, and so on and so forth. The price can be physical and mental. Experts warn that certain Maxxing trends can encourage extreme behaviors, a search for perfectionism that never quite gets to us, and an obsessive preoccupation with our bodies and health. And that's really unhealthy.
In other words, you also need to know when to stop self-improvement, and one way to do this is to simply not do it. To space out tasks, introduce "initiated boredom" into your routine, and allow your systems time to relax. When we are awake, but not engaged in a task that requires our attention, not working, not studying, not scrolling, or filling our heads with more information, we are in a state of "awake rest." Sometimes the term quiet rest is also used. This is a short period of time in which we are present without setting goals, without planning, or taking any proactive action.
In 2025, a review published in a professional journal that combined data from 37 studies found that awake, quiet rest after learning was associated with significant improvements in memory consolidation. The benefit continued to exist when tested seven days after learning, although to a lesser extent.
Rest helps the brain organize itself.
After a few hours of sailing and watching the reflection of the trees on the water, after the pleasure of watching the swans and birds, the tension begins to ease. There is a feeling that the body is beginning to agree to peace, and the mind follows suit. Suddenly there is a little more listening, more patience. You can sit without doing anything all the time and not feel guilty. You can observe and enjoy merging with the flow of the river, absorb the new sights that emerge, and breathe.
One explanation that researchers offer is a process called "memory replay." During rest, the brain apparently reprocesses information that was received shortly before, rather than immediately engaging with the next stimulus. Previous research has examined the relationship between awake rest and memory consolidation and suggested that awake rest allows the brain conditions that are somewhat similar to those that occur during sleep, because there is less new information competing for attention.
Studies have shown that the positive effect of awake rest does not depend on closing your eyes, on a certain body position or on a certain lighting. In other words, you don't have to lie in the dark in a quiet room or go on a retreat, you can simply rest, stop "doing" for a moment and simply "be". What is happening in the brain during this time is probably the consolidation of information. When we learn something new, the memory is not yet stable. The brain needs time to process the information and consolidate it. In another study, three conditions were compared after learning: sleep, quiet rest with closed eyes and a distracting task. Both sleep and quiet rest led to better memory performance compared to the distracting task, at least in the short period of time tested. In other words, sometimes the problem is not that we need more information. The problem is that we don't give the information we have already received time to settle.
Stand still and breathe calmly.
Recently, another idea has come up about how to achieve rest for the brain. The idea is Standing Still. The principle is simple, stand in one place for a few minutes, without a phone, without music and without trying to achieve anything. It is somewhat reminiscent of an ancient Chinese practice called Zhan Zhuang, which roughly means “standing like a tree” or “standing a pillar”. This is not just any random standing, but a traditional practice that combines a motionless posture, breathing and internal attention.
One study involved 24 male tai chi practitioners, and examined brain activity during standing zan zhuang. The researchers found changes in oxygenated hemoglobin levels in different areas of the prefrontal cortex and in the connectivity between these areas. The study doesn’t prove that standing still is a “cure” for stress or memory, but it adds another piece to the puzzle of what happens in the brain during quiet, reduced attention, and non-movement practice.
The conclusion is that you don't need to start a new morning ritual, buy a special mattress, or sign up for a "conscious standing" workshop. You can start at a traffic light, the next time the light is red, not take out your phone. Just wait and allow "inaction" to take place. You can try something similar after a lecture, meeting, or significant conversation. Before immediately turning on your cell phone or creating a new stimulus, a new action, leave a few minutes in which you don't bring anything new into your mind. Although science doesn't allow itself to say that it has found the secret to a healthy life, it seems that the quiet, restful state helps consolidate memory.
There is another concept worth getting to know: the Default Mode Network. This is a group of areas in the brain that tend to be more active when we are not focused on a particular external task. It is related, among other things, to internal processing, thoughts about ourselves, memories, and planning. Researchers believe that a resting state is not a shutdown of the brain but rather a transition of the brain to a different working state, a default state.
Stop the chase.
I remember my childhood, days when the word potential was a kind of curse. A girl has potential and she has to strive to fulfill it. To push to the limit, to maximize, to achieve, to improve all the time. Now in my adulthood, I allow myself times of relaxation between one stress and another, between one task and the one that came after it.
It is known that a good idea often comes precisely when the mind gets a little quiet. In the shower, while driving, or when we look out the window and don't try to solve anything. To reach this quiet, you don't have to do anything dramatic. You can decide that once a day or several times, for two minutes, you won't fill your time with information or action. Without a phone, without news, and without a task. You can stand by the window, sit on the balcony, or stand quietly wherever you find appropriate, and don't activate anything. You can do it while waiting in line, when standing at a traffic light, or initiate quiet time, breathe naturally, and simply be. In those moments of rest, you don't have to achieve anything, not succeed, you don't have to reach heights, you don't even have to enjoy it. Just be in calm rest, quiet peace, for two or three minutes. Be, not do. You can think of it as a rebellion against the culture of "more."
Those who are not used to moments of rest will initially find themselves in a state where the brain invents stimuli such as thoughts, increased attention to environmental disturbances and other stimuli. But over time, when the brain agrees to the state of alert silence, it can bring wonderful results. According to recent studies, it can be understood that inaction or proactive relaxation are essential states to allow internal processing of data collected up to that moment, memory consolidation, and improved creativity. When thoughts wander, tension decreases and there is a decrease in stress levels.
We live in a time when almost everything can be measured: steps, hours of sleep, calories, heart rate, weight, performance, and even concentration level. The word "maxing" suggests taking everything one step further, doing more all the time. Standing still, resting attentively, suggest resting occasionally without being constantly active and exposed, and perhaps introducing the word "enough" into the vocabulary. Not because we have nothing to improve, but because not everything in life has to reach the maximum. You can be healthy without being obsessed with health. You can develop without constantly chasing the upgraded version of yourself. You can even stand at a traffic light without turning those thirty seconds into a project. There's no need to focus on your breathing or "clear your head." Just take a quiet moment and let your thoughts flow wherever they please.
While we're so busy maximizing life, we've forgotten that our brains deserve a break too. So the next time we feel like we're "doing nothing," it's worth remembering that we may actually be doing something important, and instead of seeing it as a waste of time, see it as an essential tool for maintaining our body and mind.