Maxxing Our Lives May Heighten Stress Levels

If you want to improve yourself, your health or your lifestyle, you need to do it to the "maxx" - according to social media, at least.

If you want to better your appearance, you need to try "looksmaxxing" . If you want to fix your diet and look after your gut, you should be "fibremaxxing" . And if you want to improve your social skills and be more charming, you really ought to be "personality-maxxing" .

But all of this maxxing might not actually be a good way to motivate yourself into healthier habits. In fact, it may have the opposite effect - and may even cause stress.

The language of "maxxing" has roots in the gaming concept of "min-maxing", in which players strategically maximise desirable attributes while minimising less useful ones to create the most effective in-game character. The concept then made it's way to the mainstream, most notably through "looksmaxxing": making focused, and sometimes extreme, efforts to maximise physical attractiveness.

The suffix has since been adapted in multiple health and wellbeing spaces . If there is an aspect of life that could be improved, it can probably be maxxed .

The "maxxing" trend encapsulates our increasingly intense optimisation culture , in which we systematically seek to improve different aspects of our thinking, feeling and functioning. This pursuit is often aided by commercial products and services that promise to produce the "best version" of ourselves.

But there's an interesting conundrum that arises from the terminology itself. Maxxing implies there is a maximum - a point at which you have reached the peak, or perhaps even "won."

But health, wellbeing, social relationships and lifestyle habits aren't really something we complete. They're continuing and fluctuating processes. Things happen outside our control, our lives and circumstances change - and we change with them.

This makes maxxing something of a double-edged sword. It can make healthy behaviour engaging, provide a sense of identity and encourage people to connect with others pursuing similar goals.

But if self-improvement turns into constant self-surveillance, self-criticism and the pursuit of an idealised "optimal" self, it may come with psychological costs .

When social media constantly reminds us there's another metric to optimise, healthy self-improvement risks fuelling self-criticism and anxiety around our bodies, health and self-image. Examples of this have already been seen in "looksmaxing spaces" - online communities in which people can connect and exchange advice on improving appearance.

Social media use, particularly engaging with content or communities which glorify fit and idealised bodies, has also been associated with greater risk of experiencing muscle dysmorphia (a preoccupation with muscle and physique) and orthorexia (an obsessive preoccupation with healthy eating). Constantly focusing on how to maximise ourselves may inadvertently cause us to become more focused on what is wrong with us.

Moderation-maxxing

So perhaps we need to start moderation-maxxing instead?

This doesn't mean you should stop caring about health or abandon your goals. Rather, it's about recognising the mindset motivating your aim for improvement.

If a maxxing trend encourages awareness of healthy behaviour, that can be genuinely useful. But if pursuing one optimal health behaviour begins to compromise your psychological wellbeing or social connections, it's worth checking in with yourself and exploring the motivations behind your efforts.

For example, positive motivations for trying to improve your personal appearance could be a desire to boost your self-esteem or feel more open to connecting with those around you. But if the reason you're being drawn to improve your appearance comes from a place of in inedequacy and constant comparison to others, then this motivation may leave you at risk of developing restrictive or harmful behaviours .

This is where ideas such as self-compassion and mindful awareness become particularly important. Self-compassion involves having kindness of yourself, recognising common humanity, reducing self-judgement and practising mindfulness (a focus on living in the present moment).

Rather than ignoring our difficulties or giving up on improvement, self-compassion allows us to recognise imperfection and change as part of being human. It also means speaking to ourselves without excessive judgement and trying not to over-identify with the idealised version of health we see on social media .

And, importantly, accepting ourselves doesn't mean that we have to stop growing. We can want to improve while still appreciating who we are now - and not constantly feel stressed to maximise every component of our lives.

"Maxxing" is just a new and catchy repackaging of a much older impulse towards health and self-improvement. While it can be a fun trend to engage with, just remember that optimisation is never supposed to become the purpose of life. After all, there's little point in building a character with all the highest stats if you stop enjoying the game.

Jennifer Donnelly does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.