Dr. Rachel: Rest as a Performance Requirement

“And if you need to take a break, by God, go do it, because we’ll be here,” Heather Cox Richardson (HCR) said on her Feb. 19 Politics Chat. 

This jumped out at me because just a few days prior, I'd told a group of employees roughly the same. Most of the time, in fact, I'm giving folks this same message – including myself, to be transparent. 

Rest is a performance requirement, not a luxury. Whether the performance is how you carry out your job, your volunteer or advocacy work, or how you engage responsibly as a friend, parent, child, spouse, etc.

And yet, rest so often feels like a luxury. While at other times, it feels like a chore. Why?

Why Rest is Hard

It may seem ironic, but rest can be difficult for a variety of reasons, including:

• Trouble switching off. For example, when you step away, your thoughts might be racing, you may feel hyper-alert, you may feel hyper-focused on causes or movements you care about, or news of current events, or general interests. All of which can make winding down difficult, even if your body is tired. 
• Sensory overload. There are few truly quiet places left in the world. Lights are always on somewhere, and someone or some algorithm is always trying to reach us. Constant input from noise and light can interfere with our ability to disconnect and rest. It can feed into trouble switching off. 
• Discomfort in Stillness. Lives wired for constant doing (meals, work, errands, communicating, social media) make stillness feel uncomfortable. Perhaps because it feels unproductive. Perhaps because in stillness we face the full “feels” of stress, worry, boredom, loneliness, self-doubt, and other feelings and thoughts we'd rather avoid. So "busy" becomes a coping mechanism. 
• Identity and Guilt. If our self-worth, our identity, is tied to output or to helping others (causes, loved ones), downtime might feel like failure. We often feel the spiral of productivity pressure and guilt. Years of "be more productive" messaging can make rest feel lazy or undeserved, especially when it comes to causes or loved ones.

These are just a few reasons neurotypical individuals struggle with acting on rest. Neurodivergent folks might also struggle with rest for similar reasons, though often to a heightened degree. They might struggle with masking, executive functioning, social cues, and stimuli processing which can make rest – yet another task – even more difficult. Of course, this is not an all-inclusive list of reasons neurodivergent individuals might have difficulty with rest. 

The key point here is that the reason rest feels so hard to do is not because you're busy. It’s because of the underlying reasons you are busy. 

Starting Actions

So how do you address the "reasons you are busy"?

Tools and tips abound, and the more helpful ones are the more personally specific. 

1. My overall tip would be to sit in silence (or with a calming soundscape) for 60 seconds and simply breathe. You don’t have to count your breathing or change how you breathe for now. Just sit in stillness for 60 seconds. I like to close my eyes when sitting in silence.

What comes up? Perhaps thoughts and feelings tied to something on that list above? If so, can you talk yourself through them in a calming way? What’s the story you’re telling yourself? How true or helpful is it? Is there a truer or more helpful story here? 

For example: This minute feels like an eternity. I have too much to do. I have a million emails, and a call to prep for in 30 minutes, and….

Okay, I don’t really have a million emails. I have maybe 20 that matter, 10 that can wait, and a lot of junk. If I focus, which breathing should help me do, I can knock those out in 30 minutes after my call. 

And the call will take just 10 minutes to prep for….

2. Seek Licensed Support. So often we are told to just breathe, to do what I outlined above. To practice emotion regulation and self-soothing, to reframe rest, and so on. 

It’s important to note, however, that sometimes those tools are insufficient. I will speak for myself to make the point. I teach these tools, yet I know that for me they are sometimes not enough. Or they are, but damn it takes a long time to get there, or, I notice the frequency at which I need those tools is increasing under certain circumstances. 

Depending on the situation, rest can be challenging because those circumstances can trigger traumas from childhood and young adulthood, namely a need for belonging and feeling as though I did not. I work with a therapist on these triggers and traumas so they're less present in my present. 

I say this so you know you might need support around identity, guilt, and discomfort in stillness. And it is absolutely OK if you do. Falls Church and neighboring areas have wonderful resources to turn to. You can also look to your workplace to see if they offer an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) or other resources to help get started.

3. Redefine Rest. Take control over how you define rest. Rest, again, is a performance requirement, not a luxury. And while the wellness industry can make rest seem like another expensive task, it's also not that. 

Rest is actually remarkably productive for your body and mind. To just sit on the couch doing nothing except survival, your body burns 60-70 percent of your daily calories burned. This is called the Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). So your body is pretty busy even when you think it’s being “lazy.” Sometimes, for my clients and myself, this fact alone is enough to begin rethinking rest. 

4. You Are Not Alone. At the top, I quoted HCR and her reminder to listeners that if they needed to rest, they should, and that others would be there holding down the fort, so to speak. This is critical for those who struggle to prioritize their own rest because their work is tied to a mission, movement, or cause they care about. Sometimes, it can feel as if when you step away, you're letting the cause down, or the fight will fall apart. The latter not because you think you are the entire fight, but because you know every voice/body/motion makes a difference.  

It is important in those moments, when you know you need to rest, to do so. Because, as I reminded those clients and past clients across various professions and commitments, you are no good to your team if you burn out. The collective is counting on you to take care of yourself so that you can continue to show up. 

The concept of “resonant interaction” comes to mind. In science, resonant interaction is what happens when two things that can vibrate or oscillate sync up in just the right way that they boost each other’s motion instead of canceling it out. Or, put more simply, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The team members of the systems and the groundswell, or the results of their joint work, are greater than what any could do on their own. 

But only if each can continue to contribute for the duration. 

So, how will you rest today so you can return to your causes and commitments tomorrow?

Dr. Rachel Boehm is a resident of West Falls Church. She’s lived in the area for over 15 years and runs a modern change management firm helping leaders and employers navigate business transitions and constant busyness with less tension for more successful outcomes. Dr. Rachel holds a PhD in psychology focused on individual and organizational behavior.