8 ms·

A Simple Dutch Cure for Stress

79 points by dnetesn 7y ago

gttalbot 7y ago
This is why people motorcycle as well, fwiw.
- mxuribe 7y ago
  As much as i loved my motorcycle when i had it - unfortunately, like most everything else in the U.S., it costs money to own a motorcycle, while walking is...free. But yeah, if one can afford it, riding a motorcycle is really fun and quite good at relieving stress.
mobilemidget 7y ago
imho, this only works when walking on a beach, ideally cold but sunny
- degski 7y ago
  De zon schijnt er is geen reden Met rotweer en de harde wind Te gaan fietsen met dat kind
tgv 7y ago
The more bloggers, the more nonsense. > A growing body of evidence suggests Ah, weasel words. How telling.
- jgalt212 7y ago
  Yeah, editors should dis-allow the usage of such terms without citing examples in the text or footnotes.
  - smetj 7y ago
    Agreed!
mc32 7y ago
This seems to mirror the idea of forest bathing also known as nature therapy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_therapy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_therapy
imvetri 7y ago
The simple Indian cure for stress - Meditation. a.k.a watching your breath
- wadkar 7y ago
  This is not a substantive comment. You could’ve taken a bit more effort and provided some thoughtful comments on how meditation can help you be in touch with your emotions etc. Simply saying meditation equals watching your breath doesn’t help make your point. Finally this thread is about the dutch culture and how they deal with stress. Appreciate it, even if it doesn’t align with the point you’re trying to make.
  - imvetri 7y ago
    I'm sorry. Should have thought about it for a moment. I am annoyed by the way articles are published. If something is simple, why wouldn't someone put it in a short one liner than providing a detailed explanation? This is not just about this article, I have been following space/tech/economy. Nothing really provides facts. For example: Scientists may have found new variety of black hole - Does it really add to any kind of knowledge / is it a breakthrough. not at all. finding something called black hole, but finding varieties of it, is not. Its just a copied version of someone else's finding and finding some tweaks. Now to tech, - What good is it doing? New tech comes, couple of years later flaws made by the organisation comes out or they get hacked and users details get leaked. Impact is too much and they escape with an apology letter from CEO. Apology email + fined amount is still a good investment for the leaked data. thats how they see. list goes on for every field. Who is the first culprit of all these? the intellectual? Why to race everyone ? What the point ? Doing good isn't. But why money comes into picture in doing good? Why would anyone encourage doing all these? If something seems to be flawed, I'm trying to share my opinion in most polite way but for this one It went off the control. Apologies. Lesson taken. Thank you.
tluyben2 7y ago
Walking/hiking through nature (without wind or cold) works fine as well against stress, at least in my experience (and I am Dutch; I find it far too cold there to walk usually).
stevesimmons 7y ago
Nonsense! The actual Dutch cure for stress is to claim you have "burnout" (they use the English word), and then take 6 months off work while being paid 80% of your salary. Honestly, after working for 6 years in the Netherlands, I don't know of another country that has such good working conditions [1], while having so many people in low stress professional jobs taking time off for burnout. There seems zero social or professional stigma about it. - In Australia, I knew of just one person, a teacher. There they called it a "nervous breakdown". - In the UK, I struggle to think of any, after 9 years working here. - In the Netherlands, probably 30% of my Dutch colleagues had had time off for burnout at some point in their career. [1] At the Dutch bank I worked for, most of the Dutch staff worked 4 day weeks: take a 10% pay cut, have Fridays off, and nominally work an hour longer on the other 4 days. In practice, they still arrived late so they could drop their kids at school, left early for same reason, took a full hour for lunch, and most days everyone stopped for 30 minutes mid-morning because it was someone's birthday. Nearly the only people who worked full 5-day weeks were the expats.
- goranb 7y ago
  Seems like they have it figured out. Time for the rest of us to catch up.
- gok 7y ago
  Sounds like few working hours leads to burnout.
- theraido 7y ago
  Work and an NGO, expats are never in on Fridays. Just us IT folks, working our 40 hours. Making a specific amount of hours or working hard doesn't cause burnout most of the time.
- jlengrand 7y ago
  Burnout is only directly related to the amount of hours worked.
- jypepin 7y ago
  This. I worked in the NL for 3 years and this was the hardest thing to accept / adapt to when I arrived. The Dutch have a completely different approach to work, which to us American, could seem like they just don't care. I still remember dealing with a real estate agent (known to usually be hustling in US) who wouldn't work weekends or after hours to have us visit a house we wanted to buy. Nonsense! :) And I also know a lot of people who had burnouts - while working in conditions that seemed... very good and not stressful.
mettamage 7y ago
If you know the term "uitwaaien" I'd say this rings pretty much true: "Meyer has lived in the Netherlands for more than 20 years and has come to specialize in the language, despite being a non-native speaker." In all fairness, I haven't heard or used the word for a couple of years now, so not sure to what extent this is true: "She says uitwaaien is a popular activity where she lives—one believed to have important psychological benefits. “Uitwaaien is something you do to clear your mind and feel refreshed—out with the bad air, in with the good,” she tells me. “It’s seen as a pleasant, easy, and relaxing experience—a way to destress or escape from daily life.”"
- sailfast 7y ago
  Yeah this is not something that I’ve ever heard referenced but I’m not totally fluent. Also I doubt that the cold and wind part of uitwaaien as described by this non-native speaker is relevant vs. the fact that NL is just often cold and windy and that’s the only way you can get outside? :) I’m sure that the Dutch would do this on a sunny day as well if they could find more of them! This article was junk, but yes Totally agree going for a windy bike ride along the canals or the beach, or a windy dike will certainly clear your head a bit, or allow you to think about things and feel refreshed. Any time away from work / stress to think will do this, though - it’s not a “method” to be used.
  - Scarblac 7y ago
    I mean, it is true that a walk out in the wind (say on a beach or wide open nature) can be enjoyable, and you feel refreshed when you go inside again afterwards. And we do sometimes set out to go for a walk in windy conditions -- because the alternative is to stay inside during all of autumn. I just don't believe that's an especially Dutch thing.
- mrkoot 7y ago
  FWIW, N=1: I'm Dutch and don't recall the word "uitwaaien" being commonly used like this throughout society. It's only used in informal settings, e.g. between friends/family/colleague (AFAIK), and has little to no meaning outside specific contexts. It is, for instance, also used when joshing a person (with either teaseful or unpleasant intent) by proposing they should leave (the room or building): the phrase "ga jij maar even uitwaaien" means "(you should) go outside". When a cyclist informs a partner/friend/colleague about their intent to leave for (outdoor) cycling by saying "ik ga even uitwaaien". Hence I too am a bit surprised about this article.
theraido 7y ago
"people who live closer to the coast, like many Netherlanders do, report better physical and psychological health than those farther inland." The whole randstad area (near the coast, with all the major cities) has more jobs, wealth, opportunities and such..
- geitir 7y ago
  Chicken and the egg case quite possibly
- conceptme 7y ago
  The air is much more polluted in de grandstand, I doubt they will have better physical health.
mrmonkeyman 7y ago
I'm Dutch. This is nonsense. The top commenter is closer to the truth. We all have strategically planned "burnouts".
DanielleMolloy 7y ago
Going outside? Leisure biking / walking? Really? Is this satire?
bouk 7y ago
This is another one in a series of articles (like https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/smarter-living/the-case-for-doing-nothing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/smarter-living/the-case-f...) about Americans finding out that there's a word for something in Dutch and making a big deal out of it. It's just so hilarious to me as someone from The Netherlands. Not like we're niksen and uitwaaien every day. The Dutch version of The Onion made fun of it too: https://speld.nl/2019/01/25/kwakkelen-the-ancient-dutch-art-of-kind-of-talking-about-your-health/ https://speld.nl/2019/01/25/kwakkelen-the-ancient-dutch-art-...
- Aeolun 7y ago
  I concur. We may do it potentially every day, but nobody ‘sets out’ to do that. They set oit for a walk, and a side effect of that is ‘uitwaaien’. It’s definitely not “a popular pastime”...
dsr_ 7y ago
The headline needs an editor. "Dutch cure" is a euphemism for suicide. A competent editor would, I hope, have caught that.
davidw 7y ago
I wrote about how my bike helps me think, a few years back: https://journal.dedasys.com/2015/04/20/the-bicycle-a-thinking-machine/ https://journal.dedasys.com/2015/04/20/the-bicycle-a-thinkin...
allsunny 7y ago
i wonder how much of the feeling is being outside vs just getting exercise.

79 points by dnetesn 7y ago

gttalbot 7y ago

This is why people motorcycle as well, fwiw.

mxuribe 7y ago
As much as i loved my motorcycle when i had it - unfortunately, like most everything else in the U.S., it costs money to own a motorcycle, while walking is...free. But yeah, if one can afford it, riding a motorcycle is really fun and quite good at relieving stress.

mobilemidget 7y ago

imho, this only works when walking on a beach, ideally cold but sunny

degski 7y ago
De zon schijnt er is geen reden Met rotweer en de harde wind Te gaan fietsen met dat kind

tgv 7y ago

The more bloggers, the more nonsense. > A growing body of evidence suggests Ah, weasel words. How telling.

jgalt212 7y ago
Yeah, editors should dis-allow the usage of such terms without citing examples in the text or footnotes.
- smetj 7y ago
  Agreed!

mc32 7y ago

This seems to mirror the idea of forest bathing also known as nature therapy. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_therapy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_therapy

imvetri 7y ago

The simple Indian cure for stress - Meditation. a.k.a watching your breath

wadkar 7y ago
This is not a substantive comment. You could’ve taken a bit more effort and provided some thoughtful comments on how meditation can help you be in touch with your emotions etc. Simply saying meditation equals watching your breath doesn’t help make your point. Finally this thread is about the dutch culture and how they deal with stress. Appreciate it, even if it doesn’t align with the point you’re trying to make.
- imvetri 7y ago
  I'm sorry. Should have thought about it for a moment. I am annoyed by the way articles are published. If something is simple, why wouldn't someone put it in a short one liner than providing a detailed explanation? This is not just about this article, I have been following space/tech/economy. Nothing really provides facts. For example: Scientists may have found new variety of black hole - Does it really add to any kind of knowledge / is it a breakthrough. not at all. finding something called black hole, but finding varieties of it, is not. Its just a copied version of someone else's finding and finding some tweaks. Now to tech, - What good is it doing? New tech comes, couple of years later flaws made by the organisation comes out or they get hacked and users details get leaked. Impact is too much and they escape with an apology letter from CEO. Apology email + fined amount is still a good investment for the leaked data. thats how they see. list goes on for every field. Who is the first culprit of all these? the intellectual? Why to race everyone ? What the point ? Doing good isn't. But why money comes into picture in doing good? Why would anyone encourage doing all these? If something seems to be flawed, I'm trying to share my opinion in most polite way but for this one It went off the control. Apologies. Lesson taken. Thank you.

tluyben2 7y ago

Walking/hiking through nature (without wind or cold) works fine as well against stress, at least in my experience (and I am Dutch; I find it far too cold there to walk usually).

stevesimmons 7y ago

Nonsense! The actual Dutch cure for stress is to claim you have "burnout" (they use the English word), and then take 6 months off work while being paid 80% of your salary. Honestly, after working for 6 years in the Netherlands, I don't know of another country that has such good working conditions [1], while having so many people in low stress professional jobs taking time off for burnout. There seems zero social or professional stigma about it. - In Australia, I knew of just one person, a teacher. There they called it a "nervous breakdown". - In the UK, I struggle to think of any, after 9 years working here. - In the Netherlands, probably 30% of my Dutch colleagues had had time off for burnout at some point in their career. [1] At the Dutch bank I worked for, most of the Dutch staff worked 4 day weeks: take a 10% pay cut, have Fridays off, and nominally work an hour longer on the other 4 days. In practice, they still arrived late so they could drop their kids at school, left early for same reason, took a full hour for lunch, and most days everyone stopped for 30 minutes mid-morning because it was someone's birthday. Nearly the only people who worked full 5-day weeks were the expats.

goranb 7y ago
Seems like they have it figured out. Time for the rest of us to catch up.
gok 7y ago
Sounds like few working hours leads to burnout.
theraido 7y ago
Work and an NGO, expats are never in on Fridays. Just us IT folks, working our 40 hours. Making a specific amount of hours or working hard doesn't cause burnout most of the time.
jlengrand 7y ago
Burnout is only directly related to the amount of hours worked.
jypepin 7y ago
This. I worked in the NL for 3 years and this was the hardest thing to accept / adapt to when I arrived. The Dutch have a completely different approach to work, which to us American, could seem like they just don't care. I still remember dealing with a real estate agent (known to usually be hustling in US) who wouldn't work weekends or after hours to have us visit a house we wanted to buy. Nonsense! :) And I also know a lot of people who had burnouts - while working in conditions that seemed... very good and not stressful.

mettamage 7y ago

If you know the term "uitwaaien" I'd say this rings pretty much true: "Meyer has lived in the Netherlands for more than 20 years and has come to specialize in the language, despite being a non-native speaker." In all fairness, I haven't heard or used the word for a couple of years now, so not sure to what extent this is true: "She says uitwaaien is a popular activity where she lives—one believed to have important psychological benefits. “Uitwaaien is something you do to clear your mind and feel refreshed—out with the bad air, in with the good,” she tells me. “It’s seen as a pleasant, easy, and relaxing experience—a way to destress or escape from daily life.”"

sailfast 7y ago
Yeah this is not something that I’ve ever heard referenced but I’m not totally fluent. Also I doubt that the cold and wind part of uitwaaien as described by this non-native speaker is relevant vs. the fact that NL is just often cold and windy and that’s the only way you can get outside? :) I’m sure that the Dutch would do this on a sunny day as well if they could find more of them! This article was junk, but yes Totally agree going for a windy bike ride along the canals or the beach, or a windy dike will certainly clear your head a bit, or allow you to think about things and feel refreshed. Any time away from work / stress to think will do this, though - it’s not a “method” to be used.
- Scarblac 7y ago
  I mean, it is true that a walk out in the wind (say on a beach or wide open nature) can be enjoyable, and you feel refreshed when you go inside again afterwards. And we do sometimes set out to go for a walk in windy conditions -- because the alternative is to stay inside during all of autumn. I just don't believe that's an especially Dutch thing.
mrkoot 7y ago
FWIW, N=1: I'm Dutch and don't recall the word "uitwaaien" being commonly used like this throughout society. It's only used in informal settings, e.g. between friends/family/colleague (AFAIK), and has little to no meaning outside specific contexts. It is, for instance, also used when joshing a person (with either teaseful or unpleasant intent) by proposing they should leave (the room or building): the phrase "ga jij maar even uitwaaien" means "(you should) go outside". When a cyclist informs a partner/friend/colleague about their intent to leave for (outdoor) cycling by saying "ik ga even uitwaaien". Hence I too am a bit surprised about this article.

theraido 7y ago

"people who live closer to the coast, like many Netherlanders do, report better physical and psychological health than those farther inland." The whole randstad area (near the coast, with all the major cities) has more jobs, wealth, opportunities and such..

geitir 7y ago
Chicken and the egg case quite possibly
conceptme 7y ago
The air is much more polluted in de grandstand, I doubt they will have better physical health.

mrmonkeyman 7y ago

I'm Dutch. This is nonsense. The top commenter is closer to the truth. We all have strategically planned "burnouts".

DanielleMolloy 7y ago

Going outside? Leisure biking / walking? Really? Is this satire?

bouk 7y ago

This is another one in a series of articles (like https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/smarter-living/the-case-for-doing-nothing.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/smarter-living/the-case-f...) about Americans finding out that there's a word for something in Dutch and making a big deal out of it. It's just so hilarious to me as someone from The Netherlands. Not like we're niksen and uitwaaien every day. The Dutch version of The Onion made fun of it too: https://speld.nl/2019/01/25/kwakkelen-the-ancient-dutch-art-of-kind-of-talking-about-your-health/ https://speld.nl/2019/01/25/kwakkelen-the-ancient-dutch-art-...

Aeolun 7y ago
I concur. We may do it potentially every day, but nobody ‘sets out’ to do that. They set oit for a walk, and a side effect of that is ‘uitwaaien’. It’s definitely not “a popular pastime”...

dsr_ 7y ago

The headline needs an editor. "Dutch cure" is a euphemism for suicide. A competent editor would, I hope, have caught that.

davidw 7y ago

I wrote about how my bike helps me think, a few years back: https://journal.dedasys.com/2015/04/20/the-bicycle-a-thinking-machine/ https://journal.dedasys.com/2015/04/20/the-bicycle-a-thinkin...

allsunny 7y ago

i wonder how much of the feeling is being outside vs just getting exercise.