Why We Don’t Rest (Even When We Know We Should)
Most of us know that our bodies need rest. We know we need sleep. We don’r really need Matt Walker to tell us this. And if you don’t personally know all your stats, your Whoop band or smartwatch might flash warnings: “You need recovery.”
We know what’s good for us: a walk in nature, a breathwork session, a yoga class, some stillness. And yet, after a long day, we find ourselves curled up on the couch, eyes fixed on Netflix, numbing out rather than truly relaxing.
The truth is, we’re not lazy. We’re overwhelmed. And part of that overwhelm is that rest itself has become another item on our to-do list.
Let’s pause here. Let it sink in. Rest now is a to-do. We mind-over-matter our bodies into chilling out. And then we wonder why our bodies find it hard to fall asleep.
The first question isn’t whether or not you need rest (everyone needs rest), or what kind of rest you need, or how to schedule it in. The real question is: have you given yourself permission to rest? Or are your pressuring yourself into rest?
Step 1: Permission to Pause
Here’s a little secret. I teach breathwork. I guide clients through deep nervous system regulation techniques. And with all my training, knowledge, and tools, I still catch myself skipping my own breathwork sessions when the day gets hectic.
Why?
Because there’s always something else that feels more urgent. Something that needs to be done before I can relax. An invisible rulebook that says, “You can rest… once everything is finished.” Which, of course, it never is.
Many of us unconsciously hold the belief that rest must be earned. That there’s a certain productivity quota we must hit before we’re allowed to downshift.
But real rest doesn’t work that way. True rest requires emotional permission. And that means checking in with the parts of us — the inner voices, beliefs, and fears — that are actively resisting us to pause and zoom out.
This is where Internal Family Systems (IFS) can be so helpful. IFS, or parts work, move from the assumption that we all have an internal family of different sub-personalities or parts, that take up important roles in our lives. All parts are meat to keep us safe, but they become active in different contexts.
All of us have parts that try to keep us from failing. IFS calls these Protectors.
Protectors often try to prevent failure, rejection, shame, or overwhelm. Sometimes by over-functioning (e.g., perfectionism, overworking), and sometimes by under-functioning (e.g., procrastination, numbing).
When I work with clients, we slow down enough to meet the parts of them that say:
“You can’t stop now — you’ll fall behind.”
- “You’ll look lazy if you take a break.”
- “You should be able to push through.”
- “You have procrastinated for 4 hours, you are not allowed to relax!”
- These parts often come from love. They’re trying to protect us. But we have become so adept at pushing them away, not trying to feel their feelings, and just keeping ourselves busy with their behaviors (doing more more more), that we forgot how to listen to them.
When we can take a moment of presence, and learn to listen to these parts of us with curiosity and compassion, they calm down, become less rigid and over active, and this actually creates the space you need to give yourself permission to pause and relax.
Step 2: Designing Your Day (and Environment) for Rest
Once we give ourselves permission to pause, the next step is ma
king that pause physically possible.
“Do some breathwork” or “take a walk” are noble ideas, but they’re vague. And our brains need specifics to be able to execute.
Instead of adding “meditate” to your to-do list, what would it look like to design your day around it?
What if your 3 PM break became “three rounds of box breathing in the garden”?
- What if your Tuesday mornings always started with that 8:00 AM Yin class?
- What if the yoga mat wasn’t rolled up in the closet, but always visible in your living room?
- This is the heart of behavior design. The easier a habit is to start, the more likely it is to happen. We’re not trying to force discipline, we’re creating gentle frictionless cues that help rest emerge.
So often, we schedule everything except rest. And when we do schedule it, we feel guilty for not doing something else. But if you truly want to relax at 2 PM, then at 2 PM — what are you not going to do? What are you willing to let go of, in order to get rest (and therefore, sleep better, and be more efficient the next day?).
This is the hidden art of real rest: it's not just about what you want. It's about what you can let go of in order to do what you want. I personally, find this one of the hardest things to do. And this is why step 1 is so important. Because if you don’t feel like you have permission to pause, you will never be able to prioritize rest, and you will never be able to design it into your day.
Step 3: Calming the Body Before Calming the Mind
Even with permission and a well-designed plan, many people find that rest still feels… inaccessible.
That’s because rest isn’t just a mindset. It’s a physiological state. You can’t drop into deep meditation when your heart is racing and your shoulders are up to your ears. You need a bridge. A practice that signals safety to the body first. For me, that bridge is breathwork (or a really tough cross-fit workout. But even then, knowing how to breathe makes all the difference).
Breath is physical. It’s immediate. It speaks directly to the nervous system, no words are required. In fact, breathwork often works better when we’re too frazzled to talk, journal, or “think it through.” And its no wonder why pranayama (breathing) was a practice that was required before meditation.
Let that be a powerful reminder from the yogic tradition: meditation is not the starting point. It’s the sixth limb of yoga. Yama (how we relate to others), Niyama (how we relate to ourselves), Asana (posture & Movement), Pranayama (Breathing), and Pratyahara (our ability to filter out external distractions) are all skills that need to be learned in order to get to Dhyana (meditation).
Meaning, we’re supposed to prepare for being able to calmly observe our thoughts: physically, emotionally, energetically. And yet here we are, trying to think of nothing after a day of running around like a chicken with its head cut-off, and wondering why it feels so uncomfortable and busy in our heads.
You don’t need to jump into the stillness. No one can really. You need to arrive there. Your body knows how to relax. We just need to get out of the way, we need our agendas to get out of the way, and we need to calm down the physiological stress we feel, before we are ready to sit in stillness.
So What Do We Actually Do?
Here’s what I suggest:
1. Check in with your beliefs around rest. What parts of you resist it? Can you meet them with compassion and listen to what they have to say? Can you give yourself permission to pause?
2. Design for success. Place cues, remove distractions, block time and Pick one specific and preferably physical rest practice. Not just “do breathwork,” but “do ‘relax from chronic stress’for 10 minutes after you come home from work.”
3. Let the body lead. Especially when you're too tired or frazzled to "mentally" relax: start with the body. Move, breathe, then settle in for rest.
Permission. Design. Feel.
Rest isn’t one more thing you should do. It’s the thing that makes everything else possible. You deserve it.
If you want to work with me on the above, I am hosting 3 live (free) events on Insight timer where we will work through all 3 steps on the following dates:
📅 Aug 11 - ‘25
🕛 12:00 CEST
🎧 [Join Here]
📅 Aug 18 - ‘25
🕛 12:00 CEST
🎧 [Join Here]
📅 Sept 18 - ‘25
🕛 12:00 CEST
🎧 [Join Here]
See you there,
With love,
Inge