In November 2021, a woman with autoimmune issues experienced a flare-up. Her doctor was unsure whether rheumatoid arthritis or fibromyalgia was the cause, or if both conditions were acting together. The achiness and fatigue were signs that something was more active than usual.
She woke up tired, needed naps, and often ran out of spoons. That phrase is familiar to many with chronic conditions. It comes from an essay called “The Spoon Theory,” written by Christine Miserandino.
While the reason was unclear, one thing was certain: her body was demanding rest.
Knowing that she needed rest did not make it easy to actually 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 an email or move laundry into the dryer.
Even with a body and brain crying out for rest, it was difficult to allow herself to do it. 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 all the things they should be doing to stay busy. Work in all its forms, from job tasks to errands to chores, is what they are supposed to do.
From a young age, people are conditioned to be productive and stay busy. 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.”
Even those who avoided direct messages about staying busy received them indirectly by watching the people in their lives. They watched parents come home from work with grocery bags, fix dinner while putting groceries away, or were asked what they were doing and made to feel wrong if the answer was “nothing.”
Long after dinner, once everything was cleaned up, they watched parents do additional work, both paid and unpaid. They watched them knit, iron, or putter around the house.
People have been told they have to work hard to succeed. That nothing good comes easy. That they should not stop when tired, but only when done.
Sitting down and resting is not prioritized. Those who decide to rest often have to justify it. They feel they have to earn the right to rest.
Rest does not only mean sleep, although sleep is a large part of it. It also includes sitting comfortably doing not much of anything. It could mean listening to music, watching TV, or meditating. It could mean working quietly on a jigsaw puzzle, a craft, or reading a book. Maybe playing solitaire, looking out the window, or journaling.
During her autoimmune flare, it occurred to her that 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.
She was shocked to find that her mind and body were almost buckling, on the edge of collapse. She waited to notice what was happening until she reached the point where she could not do many tasks at all. A banner day might have involved a single load of laundry or cooking dinner.
She was so fixated on staying busy that she could no longer 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, which made life unpleasant.
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 to teach tai chi and qigong classes, modeling proper work behavior. She 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 did all the forms of rest, from naps to puzzles to sitting quietly. It was ridiculously difficult. She had to 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, urging her to be productive.
When she decided that rest meant watching a movie, she sometimes sat on her hands to make sure she did not pick 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 was retraining her nervous system to allow itself to relax. It was so used to being in a state of alertness that resting took some getting used to.
When she started to budget rest into her days, she could tell more easily 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.
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 loses focus on a project, she no longer pushes through. She pauses and checks in with her brain and body to see if she needs a simple break, to walk around, to 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 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.
