'Nonnamaxxing' Might Be The Key To Ageing And Longevity

This wellness approach has research-backed benefits.

Culture & Parenting Reporter, HuffPost

If you’ve spent time on social media lately, you may have noticed a new kind of wellness icon emerging. This beloved figure is not a biohacker or a fitness influencer, but someone’s Italian grandmother.

It’s all part of a trend called “nonnamaxxing,” which is less about optimising and more about embracing simplicity.

“‘Nonnamaxxing’ is a recent trend where people adopt the daily rhythms of an Italian grandmother, or nonna,” Martina Carucci, a strategist with the language learning app Preply, told HuffPost. “It’s essentially borrowing a lifestyle that Italian culture has practiced for generations and giving it a fun name.”

This nonna lifestyle, she explained, can include “cooking old-fashioned recipes from scratch like handmade gnocchi or osso buco, tending an herb garden, taking slow walks or ‘passeggiata,’ sharing long meals with loved ones, and limiting screen time.”

Reverence for older women and their practices goes back generations in that part of the world. “But ‘nonnamaxxing’ as a term has traveled well beyond Italy,” said Noël Wolf, a linguist and cultural expert at the language learning platform Babbel.

“It’s been adopted across cultures to describe a universal archetype – the older woman who lives simply, cooks well, stays socially connected and moves through life at a sustainable pace.”

The nonna ethos is about taking care of yourself, staying embedded in your community and resisting the pressure to keep up with the frenetic pace of modern life and get burned out.

“There’s a growing awareness that the pace most of us are living at simply isn’t sustainable – long hours, constant connectivity and very little genuine rest. Against that backdrop, the nonna offers a compelling counter-model,” Wolf said.

“The nonna doesn’t have a strict wellness routine. Their lives are naturally extraordinarily well-designed.”

Carucci similarly views the nonna lifestyle as an antidote to the fast pace and demands of modern life.

“In Italy, sitting down for a proper meal with your family isn’t a wellness trend, it’s just regular life,” she explained. “This shows people are doing more than romanticising nonnas – they are genuinely craving the whole Italian way of life.”

The term might be new, but the benefits are entrenched and real

“Research backs up what Italian nonnas have always known,” Carucci said. “Regular conversation, social meals, daily movement and hands-on activities like cooking or gardening support long-term health.”

Both she and Wolf pointed to the wealth of studies around “Blue Zones,” regions where people live significantly longer, healthier lives compared to the rest of the world. One well-known example is the Italian island of Sardinia,........

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