You know that feeling when you’ve scrolled through every app on your phone twice, answered seventeen emails, and still feel like you haven’t actually done anything? Imagine swapping all of that for slippers, a slow walk through the garden, and a pot of herbal tea cooling on the kitchen counter. It sounds impossibly quaint – the kind of afternoon your grandmother might have enjoyed in a sunlit village somewhere south of Rome. And yet, for a rapidly growing number of young women born between 1997 and 2012, that is exactly the life they are trying to build. The movement has a name, and it is everywhere on social media right now: nonna maxxing.
How a single Instagram post sparked a slow-living revolution
The term traces back to February, when the organic skincare brand @tallotwins published a post on Instagram urging followers to prepare for a so-called nonna summer – one centered on cooking with fresh, wholesome ingredients, caring for loved ones, and stepping away from social media entirely. The post collected nearly 60,000 likes, and practically overnight the phrase nonna maxxing entered the cultural vocabulary. Google searches for the term surged in the weeks that followed, as Forbes reported.
Under the hashtag #nonnamaxxing, videos now show young women embracing the rhythms of an Italian grandmother’s day. Homemade meals prepared with seasonal produce. Family recipes passed down through generations. Long walks with no destination. Reading a real book instead of refreshing a feed. The aesthetic is deliberate, too: mules, long lace dresses, and headscarves chosen for sun protection rather than street style. Comfort over performance. Rest over hustle. Could the antidote to digital burnout really be this simple?
Slippers, seasonal cooking, and the courage to be bored
At its core, nonna maxxing is an invitation to slow down – radically. The lifestyle prizes everything that modern productivity culture tends to dismiss. Hands-on activities such as crafts and cooking replace the hours we typically surrender to screens. Walking is encouraged not as a fitness metric but as a way to be present. Perhaps most counter-cultural of all, the movement celebrates the experience of boredom itself, treating it not as wasted time but as a kind of mental breathing room.
The wardrobe philosophy mirrors the ethos. Clothes are selected because they feel good on the body, not because they photograph well for an audience. Think practical mules, flowing lace dresses, and scarves that actually shield your skin from the sun. The message is clear: you do not have to perform comfort – you can simply live it.
Food sits at the heart of the trend as well. Nonna maxxing promotes home cooking with seasonal ingredients and healthy fats, keeping family recipes alive rather than outsourcing every meal to a delivery app. It is less about dietary rules and more about the ritual of preparing something with your own hands and sharing it with the people you love.
Why a therapist says this trend is more than a passing phase
Psychotherapist Doriel Jacov, who specializes in anxiety and burnout, told Newsweek that the appeal of nonna maxxing makes deep psychological sense for a generation shaped by years of constant digital stimulation and a culture that glorifies productivity. According to Jacov, the economic uncertainty facing Gen Z is also pushing young people toward a simpler way of living. He described the movement as reflecting a profound desire for simplicity and emotional connection in a world that often feels overwhelming and unstable.
By embracing the rhythms of an Italian grandmother, Gen Z women are essentially stepping away from the relentless pressure to become the best version of themselves – a mantra that, taken to extremes, can generate more stress than empowerment. Nonna maxxing reframes the goal: instead of optimizing every hour, you protect it. Instead of performing wellness, you practice quiet living.
This is also not the first time the youngest adult generation has sought to disconnect. Gen Z has shown a recurring nostalgia for the childhood of Millennials – a generation that did not grow up surrounded by nearly as much technology. The revival of creative hobbies like knitting and analog devices like iPods points to the same impulse: a desire to return to something tangible and real.
What the nonna knows that we forgot
What makes nonna maxxing resonate so broadly is that it does not ask you to buy anything new or master a complicated routine. It asks you to subtract. Fewer screens, fewer notifications, fewer outfits chosen for other people’s approval. In their place: a walk, a home-cooked meal, a book, an afternoon with family, and the quiet confidence that doing less can feel like living more. The Italian grandmother never needed a hashtag to know that – but if a hashtag is what it takes for a new generation to rediscover the lesson, the nonna would probably approve.