Allowing for Rest
As the year is coming to a close and I’ve found myself reflecting on the need for rest, as well as the societal expectations of productivity. Constant productivity is not only unrealistic, it is actually harmful for our mental and physical wellbeing. The American Psychological Association published this article, which identifies seven types of rest: physical rest, mental rest, emotional rest, social rest, creative rest, sensory rest, and spiritual rest (click the link above to read more about each type of rest). It can be really hard for us to access each type of rest for a variety of reasons, including resources, internal/external expectations, and feelings of threat.
I do not want to discount the fact that many of us simply have too many responsibilities to be able to consider rest and that the more marginalized identities you hold, the more likely you are to have more barriers to rest. This is why I really appreciate the work of the Tricia Hersey through The Nap Ministry and her subsequent books (Rest is Resistance and We Will Rest! The Art of Escape), which focus on the need for rest, especially for Black women.
Our barriers to rest can also be from trying to meet societies expectations for us, through our own internal pressure or to meet other’s expectations. There is always something more we can be doing. We can work more, we can spend more time on our health, we can show up more for our loved ones, we can do more activities, and on and on. We will never be able to do any of those things to a point of “finishing,” so we need to create our own limits for what is “enough” in each of the categories of our life that we care about. Which is more complicated than just writing that down, but it is important to remember that you do have real limitations, just like everyone else.
Lastly, when I say that feelings of threat are barriers to rest, I mean that in multiple ways. We adjust to the way that are lives are and when we find things that seem to work for us, our bodies/minds resist changing. Some of us get used to being busy as a way to keep ourselves from feeling the hard things, when we slow down, we remember all the things we’ve been working hard to avoid, so we keep working. Additionally, when we’re busy, our bodies are in a state of fight/flight, which is our threat response. Thus, when we make ourselves less busy, it can feel threatening. When we have had prolonged periods of our nervous system in its sympathetic state (fight/flight), our bodies associate this nervous system state with safety, which means relaxing is unsafe. In a workshop with Dr. Peter Levine (creator of Somatic Experiencing), he said that “the lesson of trauma is that you can’t relax, because look what happened the last time you relaxed” (approximate quote based on my memory).
For the reasons above, it can be hard to relax, it can be hard to rest. AND we do really need to rest. Working through any of the above reasons why rest feels challenging requires time, practice, and reflection, and may need to be supported with the assistance of a mental health professional. For now, I did want to provide something you can use to practice rest, which is slowly working up to it. If rest feels threatening to your nervous system and you suddenly give yourself a day with no plans, you are likely to become overwhelmed. So it can be helpful to try to give yourself a moment to rest and then go back to your busy day. That may look like five minutes of rest or even one minute, then gradually building up the time. You can set a timer and allow yourself to sink into your chair/couch/carseat/etc. and just exist. Trying to avoid using the time to plan what you’re going to do next, but just allowing yourself to be. This can be a moment in the car between parking and walking through the front door of your busy household. Taking a moment to be in nature, listening to a song you like, drawing, whatever. Just allowing for a moment to not be constrained by the pressure for constant productivity.
As always, take what is helpful and leave the rest. I hope you have the week you need.
