After writing about the internal drivers of overwork last month, conversations with clients and peers revealed something crucial: resisting overwork is just the beginning. The void left by work doesn’t automatically lead to restoration—it often fills with whatever is easy and accessible, rarely what truly nourishes us.
In recent months, I've also been exploring my own complex relationship with rest. Drawing from stories that emerge in my coaching practice and my own struggles, I've come to see it as deeply paradoxical, shaped by ingrained beliefs that influence how we live.
Why We Struggle to Rest
I’ve always been a doer. I thrive on activity, and I’m lucky to be doing the work I love. I’m known to be able to accomplish a great deal. Many of my clients are similar.
The motivation for action is where things get interesting. For example, what values drive our choices? Do you know what yours are?
One of my client’s top values is adventure so she follows its call whenever it arrives. Another is driven by creating experiences with his children, determined to extract meaning from every fleeting moment.
For me, it's about crafting a rich life, one full of zest and on my own terms. This can mean life-enhancing travel, learning, diving passionately into new hobbies but also taking time to perfect a Pad Thai from scratch. I also refuse to let my breakfasts be diminished by industrial granola, so I make my own—because some rituals deserve to be sacred.
These values make our lives unique, but they can also work against our need for rest—and the pursuit of a rich life can turn into an endless cycle of activity on top of our busy professional lives, rather than true replenishment.
As I write this, I recognise an existential force driving me to experience life to the fullest before later stages of life. In my mid-40s, I am grateful to be energetic and healthy, yet I can't help but notice the implacable passage of time. Occasionally, a tingle of fear creeps in—that life is slipping through my fingers.
For many of us, doing appears to be the pathway to a meaningful existence, with our sense of worth closely connected to our actions.
Yet amid overflowing to-do lists and packed calendars, we seem to have lost touch with the profound art of simply being.
The Messages We Inherit About Rest
To fully understand our struggles with rest, it's worth looking at the messages we received in our formative years. As a child, my Saturday mornings were about household chores. My mother and I would clean the entire house before rewarding ourselves with a reading session on the sofa—a small indulgence we'd "earned" with our hard work.
And although I now have beautiful memories of us reading together, I also recognize the problematic assumption it instilled: that rest is conditional, something deserved only after exhausting every task.
This belief creates an impossible standard in contemporary life, where our to-do lists regenerate endlessly. If rest becomes accessible only when everything is complete, it becomes perpetually deferred—a state we chase but never reach.
This tension between rest and worthiness emerges frequently in my coaching practice.
One client—a leader of a team and mother—found herself caught in an internal battle following surgery. Despite medical instructions to recover, she joined video conferences from her bed and felt compelled to clean her kitchen. Most haunting was her guilt about keeping her son in daycare while she remained home—as though her physical recovery alone wasn’t a justified reason to rest.
These conflicts reveal how our beliefs about productivity, caregiving, and professional identity can hold us hostage. The stories we tell ourselves—that good parents never prioritize themselves, that valuable professionals remain available despite personal circumstances, that worth correlates directly with output—create barriers to rest that can feel insurmountable.
Why Common Rest Strategies Fail
Rest isn’t a luxury; it’s a biological need with tangible benefits, such as improved energy and creativity. Yet many of us assume real rest only happens on holidays, and even that’s not always straightforward. We overwork to close everything off before we leave, only to return to overflowing inboxes and expectations. Worse, we often check emails during our time off, eroding the benefits of rest.
We use holidays to quench our thirst for new experiences (very true for me), but many of us return feeling tired—a different kind of tired, yet still not fully rested.
We are handed down messages about rest that assume we need special conditions to do so—and they often come with a hefty price tag. Vacations by the pool, weekend getaways, spa treatments. I once treated myself to a session in a flotation tank and, if I’m to be truly honest, found the experience genuinely unpleasant.
Why have we made true restoration so complicated?
Rather than creating perfect conditions for rest, what if we simply gave ourselves permission? Permission to make rest part of our experience of living, not something we need to earn by working ourselves to exhaustion.
Cultivating a Rest Practice
Transforming our relationship with rest isn't about quick fixes or perfect retreat conditions—it's about fundamentally reimagining how we value our non-productive time. This shift happens gradually, through intentional practice and gentle self-awareness.
Different Types of Rest
Before prescribing solutions, let’s understand what's depleted. Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith distinguishes seven types of rest our bodies need: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, social, sensory, and creative. The exhaustion I sometimes feel after a weekend of “relaxing” but social activities might be signalling that while I’ve addressed physical fatigue, my need for emotional and sensory rest after a week of giving a lot of energy towards others has remained untouched.
Sometimes we're beyond simple rest—we need recovery. If rest is pausing during a tennis match, recovery is rehabilitating that pulled muscle. After periods of intense work, emotional challenges, or prolonged stress, ask yourself: "What has been most depleted that needs active restoration?" Your answer will guide your approach.
Ideas to Take Forward
Rather than waiting for the perfect conditions for rest, consider these accessible practices:
Embrace the power of micro-restoration.
Rather than checking off another thing on the to-do list, choose a five-minute meditation, gazing out the window at trees, or simply feeling your breath—can interrupt stress cycles and reset your nervous system. These are more important than they might seem. These pauses accumulate, training your brain to access restful states more readily.
Move toward meaning, not just away from work.
Rather than defining rest as "not working," clarify what nourishment you're seeking. Is it connection? Creative expression? Sensory pleasure? Physical movement? Rest with intention becomes infinitely more restorative than time with a phone in hand.
Reclaim your right brain.
Our analytical, problem-solving left brain dominates professional life. Activities that engage your creative right hemisphere—whether painting, playing an instrument, or working with your hands—can provide profound neural rest while still feeling engaging. I find pottery particularly powerful—hands dirty with clay make reaching for my phone impossible.
Honour transitions with ritual.
Notice how work seeps into rest in those 'in-between' spaces—the quick email check before dinner, the mental problem-solving during your shower. Creating clear transition rituals—lighting a candle, changing clothes, writing tomorrow's tasks—can help your brain register that the workday has truly ended.
Schedule rest with the same reverence as work.
Many of my clients discover that despite their best intentions, unscheduled rest evaporates into scrolling or chores. Place rest on your calendar as a non-negotiable appointment with yourself. External accountability, like meeting a friend for a walk or joining a class, can strengthen this commitment until it becomes natural.
What does "being as opposed to doing" evoke for you? The answer likely reveals both your resistance to and your deepest need for rest. Start with curiosity rather than judgment about your rest patterns, and let that awareness guide your practice.
My own journey with rest has transformed from those Saturday mornings 'earning' reading time with my mother to recognising rest as a non-negotiable part of my life's rhythm.
Just like in music, we need silences between notes to fully appreciate their sweet sound.
I still catch myself falling into old patterns—leaving books unread while I occupy myself with life admin, postponing walks until I've 'earned' them. The pull of productivity culture remains strong.
But each time I consciously choose rest despite unfinished tasks, I'm not just refilling my own well—I'm quietly challenging the notion that human value is measured in output.
Curious to learn more?
I support my clients through 1-to-1 coaching sessions and / or workshops.
If you like the idea of working with a coach to support you in examining and changing your relationship with rest or inviting me to talk to your team, please email me at coaching@martaabramska.com
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