The Truth About Rest: Why We Need It, Why We Avoid It, and What It Really Does for Our Body and Mind

In the modern world, rest has become almost radical. We live in a culture that celebrates busyness, productivity, and constant motion, a culture where slowing down is often misunderstood as laziness, weakness, or a lack of ambition. Many of us carry endless to-do lists, full inboxes, and a mind that rarely pauses. And yet, deep down, we feel the truth: we are exhausted, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.

So why is rest so important, and why is it so difficult for so many of us?

Let’s unravel the myth, the science, and the deeper emotional layers beneath our collective resistance to slowing down.

Why Rest Matters: Just As Much As Sleep, More Than a Pause

Rest is not simply the absence of activity, it is a biological and emotional necessity. Our bodies are not designed to function at full-speed all day, every day. Just as your heart has a contraction and a relaxation phase, your life also needs moments of softening, recovery, and stillness.

When we rest:

• The parasympathetic nervous system (“rest and digest”) becomes active

• Cortisol (stress hormone) naturally lowers

• The immune system strengthens

• Muscles repair and soften

• The mind clears, reorganises, and integrates

• Creativity and intuition awaken

  
  

And beyond the physical effects, rest is the soil where emotional stability, self-connection, and spiritual presence can grow.

Why Rest Feels So Hard in Our Culture

Even when we know rest is good for us, we struggle to do it. Why?

1. We’ve Been Conditioned to Equate Worth with Productivity

From a young age, many of us learned that being busy equals being good, responsible, or successful. Slowing down brings up guilt because we’ve internalised a harmful belief:

“If I’m not doing something, I’m not enough.”

This belief sits deep in the nervous system and doesn’t shift overnight.

2. Busyness Creates a Neurological ‘High’

Being constantly busy keeps the body in a state of low-grade fight-or-flight. This comes with a surge of adrenaline and cortisol, stress hormones that create a temporary feeling of energy or alertness.

Over time, our nervous system becomes used to this state, almost addicted to it.

So when we finally slow down? The body interprets it as unsafe, unfamiliar, or even threatening. Rest can feel uncomfortable because your system doesn’t know what to do with quiet.

3. Rest Makes Space for Emotions We’ve Been Avoiding

Stillness creates a pause and in the pause, emotions rise. Many people stay busy because it keeps them away from grief, overwhelm, loneliness, or burnout that has been quietly building.

Busyness becomes a coping mechanism. Rest threatens to reveal what we’ve been outrunning.

4. Capitalism Has Sold Us a Lie About Rest

We live in a system that benefits from us being tired, disconnected, and constantly striving.

The lie is simple and damaging:“You must earn your rest.”

But rest is not a reward. It is a birthright. It is essential for being human.

The To-Do List Pandemic

We often joke about having too many tabs open but this is something deeper. Many of us carry a constant mental checklist that never ends: work tasks, home responsibilities, self-care, emotional labour, invisible labour… the list expands faster than we can complete it.

Neurologically, this keeps the brain in a state of hypervigilance. Your body stays primed to anticipate the next thing, preventing true relaxation.

Emotionally, living in this constant cycle creates:

• A sense of inadequacy (“I can never catch up”)

• Low-grade anxiety

• Difficulty being present

• Disconnection from pleasure, intuition, and creativity

It is not that we are “bad at resting.”It is that our culture has created conditions in which rest feels impossible.

What Being Busy Really Means (Neurologically & Emotionally)

Being “busy all the time” often points to deeper patterns:

Neurologically:

• The sympathetic nervous system is stuck “on”

• The body is operating from stress hormones

• The brain is in survival mode

• There is reduced access to higher-function thinking, intuition, and creativity
  

Emotionally:

• We may be avoiding difficult feelings

• We may fear slowing down because it feels unfamiliar

• We may feel unsafe unless we are “useful” or “productive”

• We may have learned that love or acceptance is tied to achievement
  

Busyness is often not about time it’s about a dysregulated nervous system and a lifetime of conditioning.

Reclaiming Rest: A Radical Act of Self-Healing

Rest is not indulgent.

It is not selfish.

It is not optional.

Rest is the medicine your nervous system is craving.

True rest the kind that softens your belly, opens your breath, and quiets your mind allows your entire system to reset. It heals, integrates, rebuilds, and nourishes.

Kundalini, Restorative yoga, meditation, mindful breathwork, practices like these are not luxuries. They are invitations back into being, not just doing.

Because you are not here to survive your life. You are here to inhabit it, to feel all the joy, the grief, the passion, the anger and to be present amongst the chaos of it all.

Feeling Ready to Reclaim Rest, My Online Membership Opens This January 2026

If reading this has stirred something in you, a longing to soften, to breathe, to slow down, to finally feel like yourself again, I want to invite you into something I’ve been creating with so much heart.

This January, I’m launching a monthly online membership designed to help you gently re-learn the art of rest and nourishment. Inside, you’ll receive:

• Kundalini Yoga practices to regulate your nervous system, clear stress, and reconnect you with your inner energy

• Restorative Yoga classes to soften tension, support emotional release, and help your body feel deeply safe

• Creative therapeutic activities to access healing, expression, and self-discovery through art and imagination

• A supportive community space where you can feel held, connected, and understood, a place where rest is not only allowed, but celebrated.

This membership is for those who are tired of racing through life. For those who want to feel grounded, centred, and nourished again. For those who are ready to step out of survival mode and into a life that feels gentler, slower, and more soul-led.

If you’re craving a space where your body can soften, your mind can settle, and your nervous system can finally exhale I’d love to welcome you in.

Your rest matters. Your wellbeing matters. And you don’t have to do it alone