‘Why We Can’t Sit Still’ Egyptians Reflect on Toxic Productivity

By the time Nourhan El-Sayed sits down to watch television on a weekday afternoon, her inner voice starts tormenting her. It already speaks to her as she settles into the couch, before she turns on the TV, or has a chance to exhale. The voice reminds her that she could be answering emails instead.

“It’s this tight feeling in my chest,” El-Sayed, 29, a marketing manager in Cairo, told Egyptian Streets. “Like I’m falling behind in a race I didn’t agree to run.”

El-Sayed is not alone in that race, and she did not choose to enter it. 

Across offices, construction sites and bedrooms, an almost invisible affliction has taken hold of many people — one with no diagnosis, no straightforward cause and no obvious cure. 

Harvard Health Publishing described the affliction in 2024 as “toxic productivity,” which is an obsessive preoccupation with being productive at all costs, reflecting a mindset that prioritizes the to-do list over a person’s mental or physical health. It includes the compulsion to stay busy because stillness itself has become unbearable. While it is not a diagnosable illness, researchers say it can fuel insomnia, anxiety and depression, driven by a false sense of urgency and a persistent, gnawing guilt over never having done “enough.”

In Egypt, where the phrase has no tidy Arabic equivalent but the feeling needs no translation, young people describe a version of the same restlessness. 

Salma Ibrahim, a 23-year-old pharmacy graduate in Giza, describes feeling an itch to be productive,  but then guilt when she tries to sit and relax.

“I start scrolling my phone almost automatically,” she said. “I don’t even decide to, but my hand automatically reaches out for my phone. Stillness feels too quiet, too exposed.”

That discomfort with silence is the condition’s signature, according to Harvard Health Publishing. A completed task signals the rush to start another. Work finished, dishes washed, the tyranny of a spare hour opens up, asking to be spent wisely on exercise, learning a new skill, or an overlooked chore. Toxic productivity makes rest a reward that needs to be earned rather than a basic human need.

Technology has only tightened the loop, making answering an email from bed or dialing into a meeting from the kitchen a baseline expectation, and availability has become a point of praise. 

According to a 2025 study published in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, employers recognize that detachment from work after hours can improve employees’ well-being and increase productivity.

Busyness becomes a hiding place

For Karim Abdel Fattah, a 41-year-old civil engineer who lives in Cairo and works across the Delta, earning the right to rest is inherited.

“I think this comes from my father, honestly,” he told Egyptian Streets. “He worked constantly, and rest was something you got after the work was done, not something you were entitled to otherwise.” 

Even now, when his body finally rests and he sits down with his family in the evening, his mind often does not. “I would be sitting with my family and still thinking through a work issue or planning my next day.”

Instead of recognizing toxic productivity for what it is — an escape — he views it as a sign of virtue and responsibility. It makes a packed schedule read as ambition, and exhaustion as dedication. In a culture that treats constant motion as evidence of a life well lived, individuals can be buried in a to-do list of their own making while appearing to thrive.

Much like Abdel Fattah, being busy is Ibrahim’s hiding place.

“If I sit still for too long, I start thinking about whether I made the right career choice, whether I’ll find a good job, comparing myself to friends who already have offers,” she said.

“Staying busy is a way to not deal with that anxiety directly.”

Abdel Fattah came to the same realization only after his wife pointed it out to him. He takes on extra engineering projects, even when he does not need the money. 

“I think part of it is avoiding slowing down enough to think about things I’m not ready to think about, like aging, my father’s health, and things like that.”

El-Sayed put it more bluntly, saying, “Doing nothing became its own kind of work. I’m just doing it in my head instead of on paper.” Alone with her thoughts, she starts making a list of groceries, setting deadlines, or scheduling a call back.

The cruelest feature of the condition is that it offers no destination. Clearing a to-do list should, in theory, produce satisfaction, but in practice, it just turns the wheel. 

“Once I am done with my list, I usually just make another one,” El-Sayed explained. “I don’t think I’ve ever hit zero tasks and felt satisfied instead of anxious about what’s next.”

Ibrahim described a comparable pattern. She would spend a whole day studying and applying to jobs and still feel behind by the evening. Similarly, selling himself short, Abdel Fattah measures himself against engineers his age who have started their own firms and comes up short in his own accounting, even though he is decades into a stable and respected career.

“Every hour not working was an hour I was failing to provide,” he explained, knowing that is not true, and he blamed it on social media and an unstable economy. 

“It’s not just ambition that drives me; it’s also fear,” Abdel Fattah pointed out. Overworking becomes a product of necessity in Egypt as the cost of living continues to rise, with inflation ticking up 14.9 percent in July 2026, driven by higher costs for food, utilities, and fuel.

El-Sayed agreed that social media is a culprit. She said, “You see people your age on social media who have businesses, promotions, perfect routines, and you compare instantly.” 

Ibrahim saw both forces at play: the online parade of other people’s achievements and a cultural shrinking of tolerance for uncertainty. “You’re expected to have a plan and be executing it at all times.”

According to Harvard Health Publishing, breaking the cycle begins with awareness. Recognizing the false urgency, discomfort with stillness, and disproportionate guilt that comes uninvited could be a way to resist. 

From there, the remedy is a willingness to set boundaries around work, allow a task to remain unfinished overnight, or accept that rest does not have to be justified by exhaustion to be deserved.

Doing nothing, El-Sayed suggested, might be the most radical thing left to do.