Rest is necessary, and it's regenerative. Our bodies rejuvenate while we're at rest. That's why you feel so great on vacation. But rest shouldn't only happen on vacation. Can you imagine how your car would run if you only checked the oil and added gas once a year?
There's real danger in the fact that we do this to ourselves. The devastation is that we keep teaching it to our children too, that "working hard," "doing something important," and hustling from dawn until the middle of the night is what it means to be good.
The idea that hard work alone is the path to riches is a myth. The truth is, we're all connected, to each other and to this planet we share. We have enough resources to care for every human being on earth. The value you bring simply because you exist is already shared and real. You don't have to do anything else, ever, to be massively valuable. Your presence here is priceless. Everything beyond that is icing on an already good cake.
We treat rest like a luxury, but it's a necessity, and the only reason it looks like a luxury is that capitalism has spent its entire existence convincing us otherwise. Rest is a luxury for something that exists only as a cog in a wheel. Oil it up, keep it spinning. But you are not a cog. You are a unique, perfectly imperfect, priceless human being, and you deserve rest.
Where This Teaching Comes From
This is a teaching I've learned from, not one I invented. Tricia Hersey, founder of The Nap Ministry and author of the New York Times bestseller Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, built this framework specifically for Black women and Black people, out of Black liberation theology, somatics, and a direct historical reckoning with what capitalism and slavery did, and still do, to Black bodies specifically. Rest, in her work, is resistance to a system that was built on the theft of Black labor and Black rest in the first place. That context matters, and it's not mine to flatten into something generic.
It's also true, as Hersey herself teaches, that this message extends to all of us, white folks included. But I want to be honest about what that means for me specifically, as a white woman. In some real ways, white people have been resting too long. Politically. Comfortably. While other people did the work of showing up.
Look at the 2024 election. Roughly nine in ten Black women, some exit polls put it as high as 92%, voted for Harris. That's about as close to unified political labor as an entire demographic can get. And the outcome still wasn't what that labor deserved. That's not a reason to despair. It's a reason to notice who's been doing the work, and who hasn't been.
So: follow Black women. Learn from Black women. Rest, when you actually need it, the way Hersey teaches. But also, especially right now, especially politically, some of us have work to do. Rest and labor aren't opposites here; they're both part of the same practice of showing up honestly for what's ours to carry.
How to Actually Get the Rest You Need
Rest is the most foundational boundary you can set, because if you can't properly rest, you can't actually do whatever it is you're here to do. Here's how to build it, in four real steps.
1. Define what rest means to you. For me, rest definitely includes sleep, and it should. Physiologically, our bodies need it, we need deep sleep specifically, our body does real repair work in that state, and if you want to stay connected to your purpose, you need those hours. But define it beyond that too. Does it mean eight hours a night? Bed at 9pm, up at 5, 7, or 9? A day off every week instead of saving it all for one big vacation? Leaving work at 3pm and turning your phone off? A real vacation, once or twice or four times a year? Take a moment. Think about what your body needs, what your mind needs, what your spirit needs. Write it down.
2. Believe you deserve it. Your body needs rest whether you believe you deserve it or not, but you have to value it enough to actually make the decisions and sacrifices that protect it. If you can't believe it yet, fake it until you do. Give yourself the rest anyway, and let your brain catch up to believing you're allowed to have it.
3. Get your schedule together. Figure out what needs to change to protect the rest you defined in step one. That might mean cutting off work at a certain hour, getting kids to bed on a schedule that lets you actually wind down, telling your job you're not available past a certain time, or asking for time off. It might mean quitting a job that won't allow you to protect your own boundaries, or building something new instead. That's not easy, and nobody else can do it for you.
If it comes down to it, downsize. Move into a smaller life if that's what real rest requires, because a heart attack doesn't care how big your house is. It doesn't care that you were successful. Your family will still miss you, and whatever your purpose was will stop dead in its tracks either way. I'm not saying it's easy to let go of everything capitalism has told us we need. It isn't. It's genuinely hard to trust that you'll still be cared for once you stop over-functioning to earn it. But caring for yourself is one of the real ways the universe cares for all of us, together.
4. Don't try to go it alone. There's real help out there. I have a brain that clicks and clicks and doesn't stop easily, so I understand insomnia. A few things that help me: start with your environment. If the TV runs all day and night in your room, that might need to change, or at least get a hard cutoff time. The Calm app has good sleep meditations and sleep music, especially paired with a decent set of headphones. I use an inexpensive sleep aid from Costco some nights, and it works. There's no shame in using tools. We're not meant to be superhuman, and tools exist for a reason.
I also use a diffuser with essential oils, lavender especially, which is calming and genuinely aids sleep. And I use cannabis, CBD and THC, at night. If that's something you're considering, know your strains, since different ones have very different effects, and know your own dosage. Buy from a source that provides real, verifiable lab testing. There are a lot of people selling products that aren't what they claim to be.
Wrap Up
That's four steps to get more rest in your life, because rest is your birthright, and it's the most foundational boundary you can set. Once that boundary is in place, your mind, your body, and your spirit are actually ready to access the divinity that's already in you. There's a lot in there worth discovering. But you need your rest first, to actually get to it.
Recommended resources:
The Nap Ministry, founded by Tricia Hersey
Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto by Tricia Hersey
Calm
Question of the day: What does rest actually look like for you, and what's standing in the way of it right now?