Ever plan the perfect vacation and find yourself completely unable to actually be on it? You’re by the pool, everyone else has their book and their little umbrella drink, and you’re color-coding a restaurant itinerary because sitting still makes your skin crawl.
Or maybe it’s not a vacation. Maybe it’s any quiet moment — a Saturday morning, a slow evening, a rare free afternoon — and instead of resting, you’re reorganizing, optimizing, catching up, staying useful. Because stopping feels like something you haven’t earned yet.
If that’s you, this episode is for you. Because rest isn’t something you’re bad at. It’s something you’ve been trained out of. And there’s a really specific, fixable reason why rest doesn’t seem to work for you — even when you try.
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In This Episode
Rest as resistance — and why it’s deeper than self-care Tricia Hersey of The Nap Ministry calls rest a form of resistance — not a luxury, not a reward, but a radical refusal to participate in systems that benefit from your exhaustion. This reframe sets the tone for everything that follows.
Why rest feels physically dangerous If you’ve ever felt genuine anxiety when you stop moving, you’re not imagining it. Your nervous system has learned that safety comes from staying busy, staying ahead, staying needed. Downtime registers as a threat — which is why “just relax” is genuinely unhelpful advice.
What the research actually says The data is pretty humbling for overachievers. Elite performers across fields — musicians, athletes, chess players — work in focused 90-minute intervals followed by rest, not marathon sessions. Microsoft Japan’s four-day workweek experiment saw productivity jump 40%. The rest isn’t the opposite of the work. It’s part of it.
The 7 types of rest (and why you’re probably depleted in 5 of them) Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith’s research (drdaltonsmith.com — she also has a free rest quiz there) identifies seven distinct types of rest our bodies need. Most high achievers are running on physical rest alone, if that, while the other tanks are completely empty. Here’s the full list:
Physical rest — passive (sleep, naps) and active (yoga, stretching, massage)
Mental rest — breaks from the decision-making, planning, analyzing brain
Sensory rest — relief from screens, notifications, noise, artificial light
Creative rest — experiencing beauty without having to produce anything from it
Emotional rest — at least one relationship where the mask comes off completely
Social rest — more time with people who energize you, less with people who extract
Spiritual rest — connection to something larger than your individual productivity
The baby reframe We celebrate babies for existing. We photograph them sleeping. We show up just to be near them, even though they produce nothing and contribute nothing to anyone’s to-do list. They didn’t earn that love. They have inherent worth just for being here. So do you.
Rest as wealth What real wealth looks like: sitting at a café in Lisbon on a Wednesday afternoon with a friend, drinking something slow, eating a €1.50 pastel de nata, not checking your watch, not mentally calculating what you should be doing instead. Having time that belongs to you. Space in your day that isn’t optimized. That’s the version of rich worth working toward.
How to actually start Not as a prescription, but as an invitation: get curious about your depletion like a scientist, not a judge. Notice what drains you and what restores you. Ask yourself what type of tired you are today — and match your rest to that. Try micro-moments: 60 seconds of closed eyes between meetings, a lunch outside without your phone, one social obligation declined this week.
Why this is hard — and why it matters Maybe you grew up where love was conditional on performance. Maybe you’re carrying generations of people who didn’t get to rest. Maybe rest feels like betrayal, or laziness, or privilege. This is real. And it’s exactly why Hersey’s framing matters: rest as resistance isn’t about individual self-care. It’s about refusing to destroy yourself to prove your worth.
Resources Mentioned
• Tricia Hersey — The Nap Ministry • Alex Soojung-Kim Pang — Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less • Devon Price — Laziness Does Not Exist • Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith — 7 types of rest + free rest quiz • K. Anders Ericsson — The Making of an Expert (HBR) • Audre Lorde — on rest as self-preservation
Key Quotes
“Your nervous system interprets the absence of productivity as danger. No wonder rest feels physically uncomfortable.”
“Microsoft Japan tried a four-day workweek. Productivity jumped 40%. The rest is literally part of the work.”
“Creative rest means letting yourself be moved by beauty without having to do anything with that experience. Can you do that? Or do you turn everything into a project?”
“That baby didn’t earn love by being useful. Your worth is not measured in your productivity. You are the same.”
“Rest is wealth. Having time that belongs to you, not to your productivity. Having space in your day that isn’t optimized.”
“Maybe you’re carrying generations who didn’t get to rest. Rest as resistance is about refusing to participate in systems that demand we destroy ourselves to prove our worth.”
“You’re worthy of rest. Not because you’ve earned it. Not because you’ve checked off enough items on your impossible list. Because you exist.”
Why This Episode Matters
So many high achievers have tried resting and concluded it doesn’t work for them. They took the vacation. They got the eight hours. They forced themselves to lie on the couch. And they still felt exhausted, so they decided they must just be people who need to keep moving.
But they weren’t solving the wrong problem — they were solving a seven-dimensional problem with a one-dimensional solution. And that’s not a character flaw. Nobody taught them there were seven types of rest. Nobody told them that the fatigue they can’t sleep off might be emotional, or creative, or spiritual.
This episode is for anyone who has tried to rest and felt like they failed at it. Which, if we’re honest, is most of us.
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About Checking In:
This podcast is for high-achievers, perfectionists, and eldest daughters who look like they have it all together while they struggle with burnout. Think of Dr. Therese like a big sister with a doctorate who’s been there too and knows what actually helps.
No confusing academic jargon or pretending she has all the answers. Just real conversations about building a life you don’t need to escape from.
New episodes every Thursday.
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