Held on March 12, 2026.

Speaker: Stan Berger, private psychologist.

The meetup opened with Stan Berger challenging the guilt many people feel when they rest. He reframed “doing nothing” not as laziness but as a necessary cognitive and emotional reset. Berger explained how constant productivity keeps the nervous system in a low-grade stress state, impairing creativity, decision-making, and empathy.

He then distinguished between passive avoidance and intentional rest, offering a simple framework: scheduled idleness, unstructured downtime, and deep recovery. Drawing on clinical examples, he showed how clients who allowed themselves to do nothing reported better focus and mood within weeks.

The practical part included a short “nothing practice” — sitting without a goal for five minutes and noticing the urge to justify it. Berger concluded that productivity is not the opposite of rest; sustainable output depends on it.