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Are you caught in the race to do more, be more, and achieve more—only to find yourself feeling stuck, disconnected, and unfulfilled? In an age where “hustle culture” pushes us to optimize every moment, a quiet crisis is unfolding: our relentless drive for productivity may actually be undermining our emotional wellness and closest relationships.

In this episode, listeners are invited to take a closer look at how toxic productivity seeps into our personal lives, from romantic partnerships to friendships, and even the way we relate to ourselves. The conversation dissects the difference between healthy ambition and achievement born from unresolved emotions, explores why “performing” and “optimizing” can stifle genuine connection, and offers actionable steps to shift towards presence, self-compassion, and authenticity. Through relatable stories and research-backed insights, this episode helps listeners recognize these patterns and learn how to reclaim time, creativity, and real intimacy in their lives.

Israa Nasir is a psychotherapist and founder of Well.Guide, who has cultivated a dedicated following of over 350,000 across social media for her evidence-based take on mental health and productivity. Israa's debut book, Toxic Productivity: Reclaim Your Time and Emotional Energy in a World That Always Demands More, dives deep into the roots of hustle culture and dismantles the myth that our worth is tied to how much we accomplish. Drawing on therapeutic insights, client stories, and her own experience, Israa helps readers unlearn toxic patterns and adopt a more emotionally sustainable path forward.

Episode Highlights

04:07 Defining toxic productivity.

09:23 A personal journey from achievement chasing to emotional awareness.

13:11 How early experiences shape productivity patterns.

16:50 How optimization culture impacts relationships.

22:56 Restoring connection: Returning to presence and somatic awareness.

27:09 Measuring fulfillment: Moving beyond external checklists.

29:45 Barriers to genuine connection.

31:24 How busyness and parenting impact relationships.

34:34 How reevaluating commitments leads to more intentional choices.

37:57 Rediscovering play and creativity fosters connection.

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

• Conduct a Time and Energy Audit: List out all your commitments from the past three weeks and reflect on which ones made you feel energized versus drained, then evaluate their necessity.
• Question Unexamined Obligations: Regularly ask yourself if certain routines, events, or roles (like always hosting or planning) are still serving you or are just a habit.
• Remove One Calendar Item Weekly: Apply the “Chanel rule” by intentionally taking one thing off your weekly schedule to create space for presence and restoration.
• Reconnect with Body Awareness: Check in with your body throughout the day—notice hunger, sleepiness, or stress cues instead of overriding them for productivity.
• Prioritize Genuine Connection Over Outcome: In relationships, focus more on the quality of your shared experiences and less on optimizing them for external validation.
• Cultivate Hobbies Without a Goal: Practice a hobby just for the sake of enjoyment and creativity, not for achievement or performance.
• Allow for Boredom and Unstructured Time: Create intentional moments for daydreaming, idleness, or simply “being” to spark connection and creativity.
• Respond to Emotional Needs, Not Just Tasks: In your partnerships, notice patterns rather than isolated actions and bring more grace, flexibility, and emotional presence to everyday interactions.

Mentioned

Toxic Productivity: Reclaim Your Time and Emotional Energy in a World That Always Demands More (*Amazon Affiliate link) (book)

Want to Improve Your Relationship? Start Paying More Attention to Bids (Gottman Institute) (blog)

Shifting Criticism For Connected Communication (free guide)

Connect with Israa Nasir

Website: israanasir.com

Instagram: instagram.com/well.guide

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/israanasir

TikTok: tiktok.com/@well.guide

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LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/drjessicahiggins 

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Email: [email protected]

If you have a topic you would like to be discussed, please contact us by clicking on the “Ask Dr. Jessica Higgins” button here. 

Thank you so much for your interest in improving your relationship. 

Also, I would so appreciate your honest rating and review. Please leave a review by clicking here. 

Thank you!  

*With Amazon Affiliate Links, I may earn a few cents from Amazon if you purchase the book from this link.

Episode Transcript

Israa, thank you for joining us. I'm looking forward to our conversation. 

Thanks for having me. 

Yeah. And you are doing a lot in the way of speaking. And you wrote a book as an author and also have a background in psychotherapy, trained therapist. And we are going to be talking about the topic of toxic productivity, but more about how it relates to intimate relationships. Well, for people who might have a sense of that term, where would you like to start? As how. Because many people associate, especially in the Western world and us, with productivity being a really admirable thing that they take a lot of pride in. “And how do you see toxic productivity? Like, when does it start to turn a corner for more toxic?” 

“Yeah. So, toxic productivity is essentially the frame of mind in which you believe that you have to optimize and pursue achievement at all costs, and usually the cost is your emotional and mental wellness, as well as your physical and relational wellness.” So in the pursuit of outcome and achievement, you are willing to forego these important pieces of your wellness. And oftentimes, you are pursuing this achievement outcome checklist as a way to feel good about yourself, not necessarily because you are innately driven to that achievement. And I think that's the biggest distinction between healthy and toxic productivity. 

“But in the toxic productivity mindset, we're pursuing things because we think we should.” After all,

So it's like a need for belonging through achievement. And while you can do that in the short term, right? You can go for that promotion, you can go for that relationship status. If it doesn't come from a place of genuine value alignment, it eventually catches up with you, and it becomes burnout or disillusionment. Feeling disconnected? 

Yes. I mean, I've had even guests who are physicians who are. I'm bringing to mind a particular guest, and she accomplished all the things that she wanted to and was feeling very unfulfilled, lack of pleasure, like she had all the things, everything on paper that, you know, a beautiful career, a physician, M.D. And had a husband and children and the whole thing, and just felt very discontent, and she really had to reconnect. And for her, it was a particular focus. So that seems really important to be able to give a couple of indicators. One is the willingness to sacrifice self so much, the wellness, the relationship, and also what the drivers are that it's more of a, I'm not okay if I don't achieve X, Y, and Z. 

Exactly. Yeah. And I also think it's, like, important to note that it's less about whether the thing is valuable. Right. A lot of times when I talk about this, people say, well, career is important. Like, why wouldn't we want to pursue a career? Why wouldn't we want to pursue a relationship? So 

And I think that's what leads to the discontent. Right. And because that's what, essentially, you get there. You get the goal, and then you don't feel like you actually achieve something because the internal connection is missing. And the way to kind of overcome it is to either find your personal internal connection to the goal. Right. Or adjust the goal itself. 

Okay, yeah, I appreciate that. So you spoke about the alignment, and whether or not it's finding maybe an aspect of the goal that is in alignment or an aspect of it, or shifting the goal so that it is more in alignment, so there can be a sense of wholeness or congruency with the pursuit. Okay, wonderful. Are you willing to share? I know in your book, you share about your personal world. Just for people listening, when did you start to notice? Or is there a time in your life where you noticed the productivity feeling toxic as you're laying out some of these terms? Just to make this, like, an example. 

Absolutely. Sometimes my friends joke that my book is, like, autobiographical because I struggle with this a lot. Like, in my 20s, I think, sometimes you don't actually ever remove the triggers. You just get better at managing them. So I still have moments where I'm like, I'm not doing enough. But I think, like, the peak pivot time for me was in my early 30s. 

You're doing a lot of things, and, like, so I was doing all the things, the check mark things, and it was really like, you were raised to believe. At least I was raised to believe that, once you hit the final check mark, like, that's it. You're gonna feel happy and, like, you're gonna feel content. 

You're not gonna feel like you need to continue the endless pursuit. So I had done all the things. I had just moved to New York. I had gotten married. I was like. I have my degrees. I had, like, my job. I was going out and doing all the things, but I literally just couldn't feel like there was, like, an aspect missing. And so I first, because I'm a therapist, I first was like, I wonder if this is depression or whatever. But I screened that out with my doctor. And then I realized that since this is not internal to me, it must be external to me, which is like, my habits. And that's really when I went down the rabbit hole of achievement. Like, it came out through my own journaling. Like, why do I do the things I do? 

Like, why do I want the things I want? And my curiosity led me to, like, self-determination theory and achievement theory and all these, like, psychological things. But what was interesting is, like, the literature, the research was sharing that endless productivity, or what we call optimizing our time, is a result of unresolved emotions. 

“These are really powerful drivers of human behavior.” And so you are trying to resolve or cope with that discomfort through the distraction of productivity. So that's what I'm reading in the research at this time. This is like in my early 30s era, but when I went to the bookstores for, like, personal development or self-help, they were all talking about surface-level habit building. So it was all behavioral. 

It was all about, like, change your behaviors, change your habits, add this, take this away, and then you will feel this sense of connection or balance. But there's this gap, right? And so you could actually. And as a therapist, I know this. And when I was practicing, I worked with a lot of high achievers. Like, “you can build all of the systems, you can build all of the habits, you can habit stack, you can put your multivitamin next to the coffee, and all the things. But if you have unresolved emotions, the moment your resilience goes down, which it will, because we're human, your systems will fall apart, they will break down, and you will go into your usual way of coping, which might be toxic productivity, if that is the thing that you do.” 

Thank you for giving some background, personal story, but also some research around what you really came into that was more transformational. I'm assuming that it did have a lasting impact on you when you started to address those deeper emotions. 

Yeah, it actually brought awareness to things that I didn't think were, like, important in my life. You know what I mean? Like, sometimes, these things about your past, obviously, I'm in the field, so I'm like super aware of all these things. But I think we all are kind of, we all fall in the same pattern just as human beings. Like no one is above the frameworks. And what I realized is that I actually kind of minimized and dismissed some things in my life as not being important enough in understanding that it actually had an impact on my behavior. So that was like very enlightening. 

And that's why I really enjoyed the writing process, because it helped me connect the research to my own experiences and also to my clients' experiences, and then kind of make it so that it feels accessible to people, you know, like I think I read over 300 research papers, but like that stuff is really dry and boring sometimes. 

Yeah, they're methodologies and can be a little dense. Yes. And what you're describing, it sounds really important. And for people listening, I'm sure they can relate. We all, as you're saying, as humans, tend to cope or protect. And one of the ways of doing that can be to minimize or avoid or turn towards other things. And so as you're looking at the research, it perhaps gives a little bit more room and space to explore, validate, or even see it being expressed in other people's lives. As you were in a therapist role, would you be willing to give some examples, it doesn't have to be from your life, but what some of these things are that we might not deem important, but actually play a huge role? 

So when we think about childhood experiences, we tend to think about only the negative childhood experiences as having a lasting impact. And I think a lot of times people kind of default to the most extreme of circumstances, and then they're like, ok, like, if I had some trauma in my past, and that's why I'm this way, and whatever. Right. But we can have something that's called like

Right. You could even have positive experiences that solidify a certain if-then framework in your mind. 

So for me, for example, you know, when I think about my childhood, really pleasant, particularly boring, like nothing extravagant happened that you could pinpoint as an adverse event or whatever. Right. That being said, I grew up with the mental model that, if you do all the right things and you get good grades, then you kind of get to do what you want, and your parents are really happy with you, and you're not the problem child. Right? And so, like, while that was a very positive experience in my childhood, I didn't update it as an adult. And so I continued to believe that my achievements would give me acceptance and belonging and praise and value. And I brought that into my friendships. 

I brought that into my romantic relationships, and over time, as you have more experiences as a young adult and an adult in relationships, you inadvertently start to minimize yourself as a way to get achievement, I mean, as acceptance and belonging. Right. And so if the mental model of the good girl is that you do the right things, everybody will love you. That definition of doing the right things starts to include that you should just be okay with everything. Like, you don't need to express your needs, like, be the chill girl. And like, so those things kind of like snowball. And they don't necessarily have to be negative-rooted items, but they become something in psychology that is known as maladaptive. They are not serving the function they were meant to serve earlier. 

And it can be really oppressive to the real, full, I mean, authentic experience. And it's limited, right? Because if we're thinking we're earning belonging by way of achievement, then we perhaps don't even necessarily fully trust the belonging because we had to earn it. Okay, so let's talk about intimate relationships and how you see the toxic productivity impacting them. I mean, you're giving some example, but can we be more specific? 

Yeah. So, you know, when we think of the word productivity, we think of work, right? We think of working out or in, like anything measurable, and like this, capitalist machinery. Right. But I was like, very intentional about including romantic relationships and friendships in the book itself. There are six case vignettes of like composite clients. And the reason I wanted to do that is this optimizing culture that we're in, that is demanding achievement and outcome from us as self-worth and belonging. Like, that mindset has descended upon our friendships and our relationships. 

Relationship goals. 

Relationship goals for sure. Right. But also, timeline pressures have kind of felt like more compressed and bigger, and like, so things like relationship status, which I think has plagued people for years and years. Like, if you just look at Bridgerton, right? Like, everyone's like, oh my gosh, you're not married, and you're only 16 years old. That has always been there, but now, like the measuring yardstick is a little bit more intensified because of social media. Right? So 

What did your proposal look like? What does your house look like? What does your Christmas card look like? And, like, every aspect of our relationship is now either trying to be compared to. 

Either it's going to be presented in, like, a very curated way, or it's going to be kind of used to measure connection. And so, where a small date night was a connection point before, now it has become, ” How are we optimizing our relationship? Like, are we doing the best date night possible ever? Are we reading all the right books? Are we, like, engaging in the right type of conflict resolution? And there are a lot of right ways to do things now. And I think that's causing some harm in our romantic relationships because it's creating something that I call. This is not a real word, by the way. I just coined it. So you will not find this in the research, but I call this, like, emotional health perfectionism.

I think people have become vaguely literate about therapeutic concepts without the context. And so decontextualized narcissism can be anything. Decontextualized attachment styles can really be anything. And so I think that's kind of what toxic productivity has done for our relationships. It has pushed us to want to optimize it, to make it perfect, to make it comparable to others. And what we've lost is, like, the organic blooming of connection and organically learning about each other. I mean, I've heard of young adults who go on first dates, and they're like, ” What's your attachment style? And it's like, two years ago, nobody knew what that meant. And we still kind of don't know what it means because it's like an evolving concept. But so, yes, I do think we bring it into our relationships in a harmful way. 

Absolutely. And it sounds as though when the focus and the value are placed on these external metrics, that actually interferes or blocks the opportunity for this organic blooming of connection, so that even we may judge how our partner shows up for us based on these external measures and miss the beauty of it. “They didn't do X, they didn't do Y, or they didn't have this grand gesture, and therefore they might not really love me, or they don't care, or they're not really, fill in the blank. Is that kind of what I'm hearing?” 

“Yeah. And I also think that. So the toxic productivity mindset is very black and white. Right. You either succeed or you fail. You're productive, or you're lazy. Right. It's very binary. And that mindset also comes into the relationships.” Oh, you didn't do this. Then you must be bad. Like, you're either a good partner or you're a bad partner. And it doesn't actually allow for, like the human gray, like the learning and growing with your partner. 

and see it at work, as with all academics. But then you're demanding that of yourself in relationships, and you're demanding that of your partner in relationships. And no human person can excel all the time. Like, your partner or your friend will have a bad day. 

They might like to say something snappy to you or, you know, they might like, not be listening properly. Maybe they pulled out their phone over dinner. I think we have to learn some flexibility and grace, both to ourselves and to our partners and our friends, and really, instead of focusing on patterns and not really, like individual moments and labeling people using the language we've learned on Instagram. 

Yes, I so appreciate that point. And I can see how it would create a lot of issues in the dynamic, because if we're creating meaning from one instant or one off, how we react to that, our partner is going to react to that like it's creating a bit of a storm or can be a storm that perhaps we're missing again, the connection. But we're also putting in a bunch of judgment and creating, you know, fear and maybe even shame of like, well, what does this mean? And, you know, I may have been thinking of a client so incredibly bright and successful on so many measures, Beautiful, all the things. And when she's in the dating arena, one of the things that she's contending with is feeling the pressure of choosing well. 

Right. 

And that she's supposed to have like this understanding of who this human is. And I'm like, first of all, it takes time to really get to know somebody. Yes, they're going to be revealing themselves to you. But with the initial stage and the neurochemicals, there's a lot to sift through and also life to see how they, how do they handle grief, how do they handle upset, disappointment, these types of things. And so when we talk about this organic blooming, and if we're imposing these judgments, it can get quite confusing. 

Totally. It can get confusing. It can actually lead us to behave in a way that is not value-aligned to us. You do see a lot of that kind of back-and-forth behavior, and also like the approach you take changes, you know. So in the book I, there's a vignette of a man who is trying to find a partner. And you know, it's like his whole concept of dating is like so strategic because toxic productivity is all about efficiency and optimizing. So he's like planning dates back-to-back. Like, there's like a numbers game that he has because it's a percentage of dates that move from first to second, and you know, and all of those things. But then you know, over time, if you're working with someone like that, even if someone like you has a friend like this. 

Right? You might even actually ask them a few questions about what they want in a partner, and they will not be able to go beyond the rote list that everybody just inherits. Oh yeah. Kind, nice, you know, whatever. 

Funny.

Funny. But it's like, what is that? What does that mean for you? Like, why do you want a funny partner? Right. And sometimes we actually don't know that till we know it. Like my partner, who does stand-up comedy on the side. And before I met him, I had no concept of whether I wanted a funny guy or not. Like that was just like something I didn't think about. But I would just, you say the thing. Sense of humor.  

But after meeting somebody who is very much lifeblood is around like comedy and humor and like understanding how you find the light in the dark, I think it's like. So I have so much more appreciation for why that is important. Right. In day-to-day life and things like that. So I think we just, we don't know it until we know it. You can only know it by experiencing it. I think experiencing something risks loss. 

Right. So they want to. 

Or uncertainty. 

Yeah, it wants to protect you and get you the best possible outcome. And yeah, you can do that when you're mapping out a route on Google Maps. But you can't really do that with love, even platonic love; you cannot do that. You have to go out and date new people as friends to see if they're going to be friends of yours. Right? 

Yes, and the settling in, I mean, one of the things I understand about the attachment research, particularly the emotionally focused therapy, the attributes of the acronym of R so A as availability, R responsiveness, and E engagement. And when we are in that mindset of strategic optimizing, I think we're forgetting, or we're missing the felt experience of being open and being available, being responsive. This is Gottman's research on bids for attention, how we respond to one another. So incredibly powerful for connection and really engaging that emotional attunement. I mean, the felt sense of that's kind of the organic blooming of connection that I'm hearing you reference. And thank you for sharing just the example about your partner and the humor. 

Like, I am projecting, but what it feels like in my nervous system to laugh or to hold complexities and find the humor, and just like the felt experience of that, I can appreciate not knowing. Oh,  I maybe didn't appreciate the value of that. “But again, the living into it and the mystery, like, we won't know these things unless we take a risk.” 

“Exactly. Yeah. And, I think it's like, it's interesting because, you mentioned, like, being in the body and the felt experience. I do think that is also something that is like, heavily disregarded in hustle culture, which is like essentially the framework of toxic productivity.” Right. So, in the most plain sense, like in “one of the red flags of toxic productivity, is skipping meals, right? Skipping meals to work, skipping meals to attend events, like whatever it is. But you're kind of like suppressing your body's natural cues of hunger. And that's like, it's common. Yeah, you see it like sleep. A lot of people will like, hold to the last minute when they have to go to the bathroom because your nervous system is so, like, ready for fight or flight. 

And so what happens is we kind of divorce ourselves from our body. And in the romantic arena, even the friend arena, you need to know how a person makes you feel at the core cellular level, because that's what will ping you whether this person is like, safe for you, or not, or will ping you to your own stuff that might be coming up that you need to deal with or resolve. Right. And so you do see a lot of discourse right now, particularly about friendship. And like, how do you know if the front is good for you? And like, there are all these TikTok videos about, like, you know, whatever, compatibility, this, that. But it's also really about, like, how you feel with that person. 

Like, I made a video about, like, a green flag about people is that, you know, you, feet, you leave feeling good about yourself. And that's like such a difficult concept for people to grapple with because people are gauging others in their lives. Through an external lens, they are like this. We like this; it is our value driver. And the concept of like how you feel about someone is like sometimes not even on the list of how you feel after you hang out with them is something that we don't think about anymore. But we used to. It just kind of disappeared from the discourse at some point. 

Yes. And you reference psychology, and this is when psychology, we will call this operationalizing a construct. Like feeling good. Right. Like, what does that mean? How do we put that into terms where we can measure it, or you know, and quantify it? Like that's difficult to do. And this is something people devote their lives to studying happiness, studying love, these types of things. But we know it. You're saying it doesn't have to be an academic thing and a head thing. It can be a body thing. 

Yeah, it has to be a body thing as well. Yeah, that's the thing. I think we've kind of like demoted the body completely, especially like in the romantic arena. Like, I'm not against dating apps because I feel like they solved a really big problem for us. And what they also did is they reduced people to metrics totally. Right. And it took away that lived experience, that feel. And so I think the majority of connections on a dating app do not actually result in a meeting, even if you go through the chat. Right. I know there's science out there on this, but anecdotally, I know this from my friends as well. But you'll chat with 10 people, but meet one person. Right. And like that's fine. 

But what that does is it reduces your ability to assess how your body reacts to a lot of different kinds of people. So when you don't have that data set, you actually cannot trust your body's like reactions, and so you just disregard them. So one part of healing toxic productivity is the somatic experience, like coming back to your body. And that sounds so woo. Like, we're like in Costa Rica somewhere. But it actually is a very concrete thing that you can do. You can do it at work, in a meeting, or in a call. You could do it on a date without even having to get up and leave. And it really is just like experiencing the sensations in your body. 

I'm wondering if we can apply this or give more examples to people who are in longer-term relationships. Because I think about toxic productivity and how that might interfere with the connection. And we look at sexual intimacy really being present and the sense of cultivating the Warmth and the love that requires presence, that requires the body, and especially the sexual intimacy. So oftentimes, if we're in this mode of fixing or optimizing, we may really have difficulty approaching that space because it requires us to be in different ways. 

Yeah, I think, like in long-term relationships, as you're like building a life together, there are two things, right? Like, there's like each partner's individual interior world experience, and then there's also like the Venn diagram overlap between the two people. Now, if your interior world experience is just overrun with like dysregulation over commitment, fear, perfectionism, guilt, shame, achievement, orientation, if you're so busy trying to optimize the rest of your life, that Venn diagram overlap between you and your partner will start to thin out. Like the circles are going to move further and further apart as you both are pulled into your own toxic productivity optimizations. Right. And it can look so different for everybody. It can be so self-care oriented. Right. Like we can take this mindset into self-care, health, and wellness. 

And if you're so consumed with like counting macros and having time to cold plunge and sauna and like blah blah blah, you're actually limiting your body to feel just free fall feel. You have compartmentalized it so much because you're treating it like a machine now. Like, I am all for health and wellness. I love a sauna. Don't get me wrong, I do a cold plunge when I have to if it's part of the experience and they make you do it, and you know, they're not particularly good for everybody. No, but there are some places where you kind of have to do it because it's part of the package. But it's like it's again, it's not about the thing, it's to the extreme that you're taking it. So that's one way 

Because you are actually divorcing yourself from sensuality. And what you're doing is you're very much like making your body a machine. And your body cannot will intimacy. You cannot. Nobody likes it; people are like, oh yeah, men can turn it on and off. Like even they, if they are not present and they are not connected, they might be able to go through with it, but it will not be the best experience. Right? Experientially. And so that's one way toxic productivity can send out intimate relationships. Another way can be if you are bringing a competitive and comparison mindset into your relationship. This happens a lot with parents. I mean, it happened with non-parents too, but it happens a lot with parents because children become the arena for optimization. 

Yep. 

And now if you're a child, if you have two kids and they're both in like six different activities and your schedule is like a complicated matrix with like yarn connections, like, you know, those like old-timey movie detective wall art that they have. Right. And you and your partner are just like passing ships in the night, like swapping keys and cars because someone needs them. An event someone doesn't like, that kind of busyness is not productive, it's just busy. And that is going to move you away from your partner. And so one of the vignettes in the book is about this couple who have like two kids, and they have a very busy life, which honestly I think is. I live in New York, and it's every couple I know. Right. But this is no shame to people who want their kids to succeed. 

But I think the biggest question I want people to ask themselves is,

And do you want them to learn that life is meant to be busy and packed and dysregulated and kerfuffled? Or do you want them to learn that they should only do the things that they feel really aligned with and that actually have a true impact on their life? And you know, I didn't grow up in a home where rest was really modeled, and my parents, like, like I said, my unremarkable childhood, which is a good thing. But I didn't really like it. I never saw my mom chilling. My mom is not the kind of woman who goes shopping for vibes. She's not sleeping in on a weekend. She is not lying on the couch. 

She was not a lady who watched soaps or shows. Nothing like this lady was always on. Right. And so I became like that. I don't like shopping. I will never binge a show. And if I ever do, I'm like so mean to myself about it. Those are not the good things you want. 

Your children need to learn. Yes. And that again harkens back to the felt sense, the present awareness that it doesn't even have to be anything we're necessarily doing, but perhaps just being outside and looking at the sky or being present to what is in the moment. And that quality can give room for connecting, but it can also give room for real wellness in the kind of mindfulness state. Yeah. And thank you for laying out what this can look like. I mean, even with the competitive part. Like, oftentimes partners will be doing checks and balances of like, well, I did all of this. And then, like, it. It kind of gets competitive in that way. Who's doing more? And then the resentment. And then it's like, oh, gosh. Okay. 

Well, I know we have limited time here, so if you were saying what I know you talk about more of the emotional sustainability, or what maybe are some compassionate shifts you would recommend. What would you like to help people know about what's possible? 

A really easy thing to think about is. It's hard to do. It's easy to think about is think about where your time is actually going. Right? And so I encourage people to do, like, a time energy audit. And what that really means is list out all of your, like, commitments and obligations you've had in the last, like, three weeks. And then just kind of think about, like, well, did I have to do this? Did I have to do it when I did it? How did I feel before and after? And just really, like, analyze how many things you're doing that actually make you feel bad after. And sometimes they're, like, invisible things that we think are, like, good for us. So an example for me is getting my nails done. 

Oh, you know, getting your nails done as part of, like, wellness and self-care, whatever. And I realized that I always felt, like, annoyed after I left. I felt annoyed during. Never a pleasant thing for me. It always felt like a chore. I was like, ” Ugh, this is so frustrating. I don't enjoy this. And so when I cut it out of my life, even though my nails are not done, like, I actually feel happier. And so I think, like, it's shifting those mindsets. Like, we believe that certain things have to be done. Like, I used to believe that. Oh, I'm a public speaker. I go on the news, I have to have my nails done, but, like, nobody cares, literally. Right? And so it's like questioning those types of things for yourself. 

And they can be as trivial as a manicure, or they can be serious things as well. Like, how many places are you volunteering? How many committees are you a part of at work? Like, to what end? Right? So that's one thing. The second thing I call is the Chanel rule, which is taking one thing off your calendar, which is like, you know, Coco Chanel was like, take one accessory off before you leave the house, because you tend to overdo it. And we all do for sure. So it's like that, but to your Calendar. Commit to taking one thing off week after week to free up some time, and you'll actually see that you have time when you think that you actually don't have time. 

Thank you. I appreciate this. It seems like both things get at saying no or being a bit more, as you were saying in the beginning, aligned with values and what is meaningful. So it's being a little bit more discriminant and discerning. 

Yeah. Intentional. How many things do we say yes to? Because we've always said it, or we are always the person who hosts the holiday dinner, or we're always the person who makes the itinerary. We're always the friend who makes the reservation. We're always the partner who plans the vacation. Right. The gauge is like this, always, a legacy thing is sometimes your own internal sense of desire for control, but then you're taking too much on. It's making you resentful. And so, like, thinking about, like, what you're bringing to your interactions is also really helpful. And the final thing I'll say is I really think we need to get back to hobbies. I've been talking about this for maybe like a year and a half.

If anyone has ever heard me speak anywhere before, you're like, okay, well, she's still talking about hobbies, but she is still talking about hobbies. It is so impactful in a way that we actually don't realize. Hobbies can be creative. They tap out of a sense of accomplishment and outcome. You know, you don't do hobbies to get better at them. Right. You do hobbies just to do. It's an exercise of presence. And they don't have to be super involved. It could be like a knitting thing that you do at home, or on your commute. Then you just donate those things, and you're not trying to sell them on Instagram or anything like that. That really helps decompress. 

And I would imagine a key component of that is the creativity and being able to do something because it is inspiring or it feels good, as you were saying, how you feel. But accessing the creative space, I think, is something that gets lost in the more of the machine of productivity. 

Yeah. And, you know, I'll just say one last thing, because I know we're pushing up against time, but, you know,

especially people who perhaps, like, are very busy or they have always felt a distance from the arts. Creativity is not just in the arts. Creativity can be done very mindfully. Like, five senses walk in the park. It can be like a color walk in the city. So, something you can do with your children on your own. Your partner, or, like, if you go walk your dog, try to notice seven things on your walk that are the color red, that are the color yellow. Right. Like, that's creativity. Putting an outfit together in the morning, that's creativity. It doesn't always have to be like highbrow Renaissance paintings, like sculpting marble and pottery, or music. 

Like, it can be so many things. 

Yes. 

So I think, like, just remembering that is important. 

Yes. And coming back to the intimate space and what you were describing with the Venn diagram, we are giving space for being present, our creativity, our felt sense. Then we have more of that opportunity to relate. Because there's more space for connection. 

Yeah, completely, totally. Because it helps you tap into that, like, energy that you then translate into connection. And also, like, I think one of the biggest ways to improve that, like, intimacy, in my opinion, is to let yourself be bored. Let yourself be bored. Let yourself daydream and wander and fantasize and just, like, think and, like, enjoy the moments. That allows you to actually bring that energy into your intimate relationships. 

Thank you for saying that. I have said on the show before, there are times where some of the best connecting conversations my husband and I have are when we dim the lights, turn on either a little bit of ambient noise or music, or just have nothing and just chill, and we're just there. And then one of us will bring something up, and then it just evolves into a really beautiful conversation. But it's not planned. It's not like we're being super ultra intentional. It's just kind of being and what unfolds. Great. Wonderful. Well, what would you like to share about how people can connect with you? You've talked about TikTok, and you've talked. Say the name of your book, please. 

Yeah, of course. So my book is called Toxic Productivity: Reclaim Your Time and Emotional Energy in a World That Always Demands More. So if this resonated with you, I have a lot of resources on my website. You can get the book through my website, Amazon, or, honestly, your independent booksellers. Just call them. They'll order it. I always like to kind of give local bookshops a shout-out because I love them. Yeah,  I think my Instagram and my website would be the two places to connect with. On TikTok and LinkedIn.

With me and for people listening. Do you want to say the name of your website? 

Yeah, of course. It's www.israanasir.com

Excellent. And then your social media, I'm imagining they can find it there as well. Okay, I'll make sure to have all of these links on today's show. Thank you so much for all that you've shared with us. 

Thanks for having me.