How to heal your relationship with rest

In my work as an educational and developmental psychologist, I spend much of my time helping people navigate stress, burnout and the pressure to always be productive.

A consistent theme I see is people treating rest and stress as separate issues, when in reality, rest is often what helps relieve stress.

So much of the exhaustion, sleep problems and burnout I see isn’t caused by just a lack of time off. It’s about a nervous system that doesn’t know how to switch off. Even when there is a chance to rest, the body is still bracing.

That’s why rest can’t just be a to-do list item. It has to be practiced, slowly, until your body actually believes it’s allowed.

Healing your relationship with rest isn’t a betrayal of your work ethic or your culture. It’s an offering to all the women who came before you and never got the chance.

The many different types of rest

We often think of rest as one single image: you’re on a beach, phone off, 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. Beautiful, sure. But also completely unrealistic for most people’s real lives.

Rest isn’t one thing, it’s a whole category. And once you realise rest has many entry points, it stops being this big unattainable event and starts being something you can actually slot into a Tuesday.

There’s physical rest, but there’s also mental rest, sensory rest, social rest, emotional rest, spiritual rest and even creative rest.

• Physical rest includes sleeping and napping, and things like stretching, yoga, massage and deep breathing.
• Mental and sensory rest can mean unplugging from screens, work and other types of stimulation. Turn off unnecessary notifications, dim the lights, and give your senses a break – quiet time is productive too!
• Social and emotional rest might mean stepping away from emotional labour or people who drain you. It’s about not being constantly ‘on’ for others.
• Spiritual rest can be a time to connect to something bigger. That might mean taking time for prayer, meditation, volunteering, nature walks or simply reflecting on what truly matters to you.
• Creative rest can also be a great way to slow down and feel refreshed rather than pressured. Expose yourself to art, music, nature or anything that sparks joy.
• These things might sound like luxuries. That’s because for a lot of us, rest was never modelled as something you’re allowed to have. It was something you earn after everything else is done. And spoiler alert: ‘everything else’ never actually finishes.

If I’m honest with myself, sometimes I catch myself in a guilt spiral about resting, but I choose to stay on the couch anyway. That’s the work. The rest is almost the easy part.

Rest on purpose

My advice for women this Women’s Health Week is to stop waiting for the gap in your calendar, because it’s not coming.

You have to build rest in on purpose, the same way you might schedule a meeting. Start small: a 5-minute pause between tasks, a walk without your phone, an actual lunch break instead of eating over your laptop or on the go.

Give yourself permission to rest in the in-between moments, not just the big blocked-out ones. Micro-rest counts. You don’t need to go on a retreat to prove you deserve to breathe.

For some women, always staying busy started as a way to cope. If your family has experienced migration, cultural displacement or had to work hard to build a better life, slowing down can feel unsafe rather than relaxing.

Your nervous system might not know the difference between ‘I’m choosing to lie down’ and ‘I’ve stopped protecting my family’. Sometimes laziness can become the story we tell ourselves about rest, because it’s easier to call ourselves lazy than to sit with how deep that fear of stopping actually goes.

Guilt is just a feeling

If you are someone who feels guilty when you start to slow down, notice the guilt without obeying it. Guilt is just a feeling, not an instruction.

When it shows up, ask yourself, whose voice is that? Sometimes it’s not even your voice. It’s inherited, it’s generational, it’s an Aunty’s voice from 30 years ago still running commentary in your head.

Start small and start unapologetically. Nap without explaining yourself. Say ‘no’ without a 3-paragraph justification. And find your people, the ones who won’t raise an eyebrow when you say you’re taking the afternoon off. Guilt is a lot quieter when you’re not fighting it alone.