Brazil: Why Rest Feels Impossible but Remains Crucial

In November 2021, a woman experienced a flare-up of her autoimmune issues. She and her doctor remain uncertain whether rheumatoid arthritis or fibromyalgia was the cause, or if both conditions acted together. The achiness and severe fatigue were clear signs that something was more active than usual.

She woke up tired, needed naps, and often ran out of spoons. That phrase, familiar to many with chronic conditions, comes from an essay called “The Spoon Theory” by Christine Miserandino. While the reason was unclear, one thing was certain: her body was demanding rest.

The woman found it very hard to just rest. Knowing she needed rest did not give her the ability to do it. She would sit down to watch a show and try to multitask. She would put off a nap like a stubborn child. Instead of throwing a tantrum, she tried to push through to finish typing an email or move laundry into the dryer.

Even with a body and brain crying out for rest, allowing herself to do it was difficult. She had to reparent herself to enforce stopping times and rest periods. People in the Western world, especially in the United States, are programmed to be productive. They are told they should be busy with work, errands, and chores.

People are conditioned to be productive from a young age. They hear phrases like “I’ll rest when I’m dead” and “no rest for the weary.” They are told to “pay their dues” and “put in the work.” Those who avoid direct messages about staying busy often receive them indirectly by watching others. They saw parents come home with groceries, fix dinner, and put things away. They were asked what they were doing and felt wrong if the answer was “nothing.”

Long after dinner, when it was time to relax, they watched parents do more work, both paid and unpaid. They were told they have to work hard to succeed, that nothing good comes easy, and that they should not stop when tired, only when done. Sitting down and resting is not a priority. Those who rest often must justify it, as if they have earned the right.

Rest does not only mean sleep, although sleep is a large part of it. It includes sitting comfortably doing nothing much at all. It could mean listening to music, watching TV, meditating, working on a jigsaw puzzle, reading, playing solitaire, looking out the window, or journaling.

In the fall, as she struggled with her autoimmune flare, she thought she should rest more. She was so used to overriding her body’s signals that she did not realize how far she had pushed herself. When she checked how her mind and body truly felt, she was shocked to find they were almost buckling, on the edge of collapse.

She waited to notice what was happening until she reached a point where she could not do many tasks at all. A good day during that time might have involved doing a single load of laundry or cooking dinner. She was so fixated on staying busy that she could not honestly assess her need for busyness. She had lost the ability to tune into her body to find out if it needed to move, stretch, or sleep.

Had she continued to push ahead, she is certain she would have fallen ill. She was dealing with brain fog, fatigue, and joint and muscle pain, all of which made life unpleasant. It is easy to see now that she should not have let things get to that state, but fatigue, pain, and brain fog can team up to make clear assessment difficult. When she hit the edge of collapse and burnout, she realized serious rest was needed.

She cleared her calendar for at least three weeks. She cleared her work calendar of appointments, scheduled brief blog posts and emails, and took time off. It was torture at first. Her husband was still getting up and heading out to teach tai chi and qigong classes, modeling proper work behavior. She also discovered she was incapable of just resting.

She had to relearn how to listen to her body to discover what it needed. She had to reprogram her thoughts about rest as an inherent right, not a reward for productivity. She had to learn how to actually do it. She did all the forms of rest, from naps to puzzles to sitting quietly. It was ridiculously difficult.

She had to almost force herself to limit herself to single-tasking, doing one task at a time. That was especially hard if the task was mechanically simple, such as watching a television show. Her inner monologue would chastise her for just sitting there and urge her to be productive. When she decided that rest meant watching a movie, she sometimes sat on her hands to avoid picking up her phone or a crossword puzzle. She often put her phone on silent and left it in another room to reduce temptation.

Even with taking steps to single-task, she did not always manage. She learned through reinforcement that nothing was likely to arise in an hour or two that required her to give up on resting and take immediate action. She realized she was retraining her nervous system to allow itself to relax. It was so used to being alert that resting and allowing time off took getting used to.

When she started to budget rest into her days, she could more easily tell what signals her body was sending. It became easier to converse with her brain and body to find out how they were feeling and what they needed. She has never felt more integrated than she does now. At any given moment, she can pause, tap into what she is feeling mentally and physically, and act on her own needs in ways that are more nurturing than before.

When she realizes she is losing focus on a project, she no longer pushes through. Instead, thanks to months of practice, she pauses and checks in with her brain and body. She can quickly ascertain whether she needs a simple break, to walk around, to take a walk outdoors, or to stop for the day. She is learning to embrace the idea that rest is an inherent right, not something that needs to be earned. It is no longer something that occurs only once she has pushed herself to the point of collapse.

The more she leans into rest and builds it into her days, the more energy she has to accomplish all the things she wants to get done in life. When she adds time off or breaks during the day, she finds she has better focus when working on a task. When she includes rest in her days, she has the energy to exercise in the morning and also make a good meal for dinner.