Why It’s Hard to Rest - and What to Do About It
Photo by mauro mora on Unsplash
by WITHIN teacher Tessa Jonson
I’m gonna lay down a hard truth: we have quite the uphill battle when it comes to building and then maintaining a healthy relationship with rest.
There are so many factors working against us when we try to take time for ourselves to unwind - the anxiety we may feel about needing to keep up with, well, everyone; the productivity culture that looms over us all like a dark, judgmental cloud telling us that we haven’t done enough to deserve a break; and, finally, there are those of us who know the importance of rest already.
We carve out time to unplug from everything and enjoy a delicious bit of R&R. But once there, all we can think about is how uncomfortable we feel and thoughts spiral around all the things we “should” be doing instead.
Like I said, it’s an uphill battle!
Let’s explore each of these challenges a bit deeper and then consider how we can actually get some real rest.
Anxiety About Keeping Up With The Kardashians
Our society values hustle. We boast about our busy schedules and are encouraged to brag about how much we’ve crammed into our days or how many balls we can juggle at once or even the amount of extracurriculars our kids are doing!
Then we open Instagram and get inundated with beautiful photos of places we haven’t been, foods we haven’t tasted, and celebrities we haven’t met. There are infinite experiences available to us these days and so when we choose one experience - ie going to see a particular movie - we can get serious anxiety about missing out on all the other movies we didn’t see.
As Oliver Burkeman writes in his book Four Thousand Weeks:
“We grow anxious about not keeping up—so to quell the anxiety, to try to achieve the feeling that our lives are under control, we move faster. But this only generates an addictive spiral. We push ourselves harder to get rid of anxiety, but the result is actually more anxiety, because the faster we go, the clearer it becomes that we’ll never succeed in getting ourselves or the rest of the world to move as fast as we feel is necessary.”
So in our attempt to get everything done, we inevitably become more and more stressed out because deep down we know that we will never be able to get everything done.
Believing Rest “Just Isn’t For Me” or That “I Haven’t Earned It (Yet)”
Rest and relaxation are oftentimes seen as activities for the lazy and unmotivated, the unambitious and apathetic rather than seen for what it is: a basic and intrinsic human right that every one of us deserves.
One of my teachers Hilary Jackendoff states:
“America was founded on Puritanical ideals that denounced pleasure and leisure and celebrated hard work as a measure of an individual’s spiritual worthiness. Think ‘idle hands are the devil’s workshop’.
Unsurprisingly, there’s often shame and guilt around wasting time…this is all total nonsense. But it’s seeped into our collective consciousness, nonetheless.”
When we buy into the lie that taking a break is a waste of time, we can end up feeling burnt out and then wind up paying for it later. (For example, a Gallup study of nearly 7,500 full-time employees found that folks struggling with burnout are 63% more likely to take a sick day and 23% more likely to visit the ER.)
Finally, the productivity-shaped-elephant in the room. Sadly, many of us feel that we don’t deserve to take a break until we’ve accomplished a task; that if we keep pushing and striving now, then maybe we can rest later.
It’s even true that many of us feel that our innate worth is based entirely on our job title, our relationship status, or even on how many things we’ve ticked off our to-do lists. We tell ourselves, “I haven’t earned it; I don’t deserve it; I’m not good enough.”
It’s like our very existence is only justifiable as long as we’re filling every minute of every day with striving to achieve something. Yikes.
This brings us to the last point of resistance to reclaiming our right to relaxation:
I Want To Rest More But…
Do any of these narratives sound familiar? “I try to take some time away for myself but…
I always feel guilty because there’s more important things I should be doing
I just don’t have the time
Other people need me more than I need time to myself
I can’t afford “real self-care”
I’m embarrassed to admit I need it because it doesn’t seem like anyone else does
I should get more done first
I’ll just wait til my vacation next month
I can’t turn off my mind enough to enjoy it
I just don’t know how to!”
Or maybe you’d rather numb out by watching Netflix, scrolling social media, or having a drink. Of course those activities have a time and a place, but it’s important to note that these things are not restful. Which then begs the question:
What Is Rest?
In my experience, real rest is what happens when there is a complete lack of doing, striving, or achieving. Again, from Jackendoff:
“Rest is an experience of pure being. When we are truly rested and relaxed, there is an inner ease present. There is a clarity and a felt sense of knowing. Not knowing anything specific - just a knowing. Perhaps knowing that life as you were living it isn’t the only path available to you.”
As we’ve explored, this can be an incredibly challenging place to arrive at within ourselves. I recognize that the above exploration was a bit of a tangent but I hope that it was a purposeful tangent.
Because until we become aware of all the external and internal conditioning we’re carrying around in regards to our relationship with rest, we’re just going to be spinning in circles and wondering why it doesn’t feel possible to relax guiltfree.
Thankfully, it is possible. But that, of course, does not mean it’s easy. All we need is practice!
How To Get Better At Resting
Naturally, needing to practice resting might sound ridiculous but consider other times when we’ve tried something new or when we’ve had to practice over and over again in order to get better. Resting and relaxing are the same, especially if we have a lot of stories about why we shouldn’t!
The first place to start is to notice the inner dialogue that kicks in when you want to take a break.
What excuses or stories come up that prevent you from resting? Do you feel pressure from an external source like your job or your family or is the pressure coming from yourself?
Get to know this voice and see if there are lifestyle patterns (like only allowing yourself rest if you’ve not slept well) or deeper challenges (like feeling that you’ve not done enough to deserve it) to unpack.
As you become more aware of the inner chatter, when you feel the desire to have a rest, make yourself TAKE A REST! Of course you might not be able to go lie down for an hour when you’ve just started your work shift, but ask yourself “How can I give myself some rest right now?”
Can you just close your eyes and focus on your breathing for a few moments? Or look out the window and watch trees swaying in the wind? Or sit with a cup of tea and do nothing else but become absorbed in the drinking of the tea? Often when we can’t rest the way we want to, we ignore or forget about all the smaller things we can do, thus denying ourselves rest altogether.
This step also gets us into the habit of listening to our instinctive needs that we’ve been taught to brush off.
Finally, you’re resting! YAY! Notice how it feels and what thoughts are coming up. Do you feel uneasy? Guilty? Bored? Grateful? These thoughts can help us to uncover more about our relationship with rest so we can rewrite our stories and find more balance.
This might also be the time when we realize that perhaps we’re simply not all that comfortable being alone with ourselves. Oftentimes, not allowing ourselves the rest we need is directly related to a lack of self-love. If you find this is the case for you, then you could frame your rest and relaxation time as “dates” with yourself. Just like you would with a romantic partner, take it one date at a time, get to know yourself, and soon you’ll begin to build a strong, loving relationship with yourself.
Finally Thoughts On R&R
There are a lot of obstacles we’ll face once we commit to getting more rest in our lives. Listen to your inner dialogue to start unwinding all that conditioning and replacing it with what is true and helpful to you.
It will probably take some trial and error to find what real rest looks and feels like for you, so keep trying things that sound appealing to you. Maybe it looks like sitting under a tree or feels like a nap, or maybe it’s getting a massage or snuggling with your cat. The options are endless, just make sure it feels right and restful to you.
And give yourself so much love and grace as you continue to develop the most important relationship you’ll ever have - your relationship with yourself!
Tessa teaches a class focused on rest in our online meditation studio - join her for a class this week!