The Rest Revolution and How to Stop Running on Empty

If you’ve ever felt guilty for resting, or wondered why slowing down feels impossible, this episode is for you. Burnout isn’t just a bad week at work — it’s the natural outcome of a culture that keeps us running on empty. Two-thirds of working Americans report some level of burnout, and it shows up as emotional exhaustion, disconnection from ourselves and others, and the sinking belief that nothing we do is ever enough. We’re told burnout is personal, but really, it’s systemic — born from hustle culture, broken support systems, and the relentless pressure to perform.

In this conversation, I share why rest is more than a luxury or quick self-care fix — it’s medicine, resistance, and the foundation of true healing. Drawing on psychological research and the wisdom of Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey, we’ll reframe rest as both a radical act and a necessary step toward recovery. Together we’ll explore the seven types of rest — physical, mental, emotional, sensory, social, spiritual, and creative — and why reclaiming them is essential to restoring balance. Rest is not weakness. It’s how we renew, imagine, and begin to heal — body, mind, and soul.

Mentioned in this episode: 

Tricia Hersey 

The Nap Ministry 

Rest is Resistance (book)

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Let’s connect! Find me on –  

Instagram at @jesscallahan_ 

Substack at becomingyouproject.substack.com 

For burnout tools and the Back into the BODY Burnout Reset course mentioned in this episode, fine me online at www.jesscallahan.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:06

Hey guys, welcome back. So today we're going to continue our discussion about burnout. Last week we talked about burnout through the lens of like the operating system that we're all working from and how, you know, it's kind of broken, how it teaches us that we're supposed to just produce constantly and work around the clock and how rest is weakness and laziness. We talked about capitalism specifically and how this like core foundation of our culture has evolved to this place where we are now really like, you know, we we outsource our identity to the job title that we have, or how much money we make, or to like material possessions that become status symbols. And as I was planning the episode last week, what I really wanted to talk about was rest. That's sort of the idea. Um that's really what I was focused on as I started planning it, but I realized that I think we needed to talk about this, you know, the rule book that we all knowingly or mostly unknowingly subscribe to that keeps us exhausted. So today I want to actually talk about rest. And I want to talk about rest as rebellion or rest as resistance, as I will reference a book that I read uh recently in this discussion. But really, like when we make the choice to rest, it's in that choice that we're making the decision to like no longer subscribe to this rule book that tells us to stay exhausted and you know, look outside of ourselves to form our identities and meaning in our life. And so rest really is like it's the thing that we are conditioned not to do, but it's the one thing that we can really reclaim that sets the rest of the wheels in motion to help us, you know, find that place of balance and renewal and rejuvenation. When 66% of working Americans are experiencing burnout at some level, we know that it's not a personal problem, it's a cultural problem. But it's not a cultural problem that I think we're gonna be able to fix anytime soon. It's one that we have to solve on an individual level. This problem happens like when stress floods our bodies without any kind of respite. Like we don't have systems in place to like fully support us, right? Like childcare solutions that are affordable and um, you know, a culture in the workplace for the most part that supports a working mom and her continued professional growth. Um, you know, working moms still carry, moms in general still carry the majority of the caregiving and the emotional labor. And so the systems really just aren't set up to support us in our thriving. And so we have to solve it on an individual level. And that starts with the choice to solve it, you know, in the first place. And so last week we talked about the conditioning that keeps us exhausted and being able to spot that conditioning, I think is it's like first and foremost, we have to we have to know what the invisible strings are that are kind of like guiding us in order for us to do something different. And the next one is reclaiming this idea of rest. And I'm not talking about like spending five days at a silent retreat or like flying to Costa Rica and expecting that a week on the beach will like fix all of your problems. Sure, those things will be would be like really nice. And of course, they would have an impact on your rest journey, but in isolation, those aren't the type of things that are going to create like real and lasting change for each of us. But I also don't mean rest like on a superficial self-care level, like um, you know, going to get a pedicure or getting your hair done, especially like going to get a pedicure and scrolling your phone the whole time. Um, it's also not like practicing restorative yoga while repeating your to-do list in your head through the entire class. You know, it's um creating rest routines, embracing the idea of rest holy means incorporating rest into your life on a regular basis. It means prioritizing rest above, you know, most other things. Like, of course, we have to care for our kids, care for our families, like we have to work, we have to pay our bills. But just as important as all of those other things is creating a really intentional rest routine. And so when I talk about rest, I hear things like I'm too busy to rest, I'm raising my kids, I'm working full-time, we have kids' supports at night and all the cooking and cleaning the house. I think as I say that, I like I hear my own life, um, but I also hear the very real things that a lot of the women I know, you know, face on a day-to-day basis too. Um with all of those like balls that we have to keep in the air, rest almost feels like laughable. You know, people also say, like, well, I just can't take three days away from work whenever I need a break. Or how can I afford to rest if I can't even be sure that I can pay my bills? And, you know, all of those things are true and they're valid. And I think that the point that I want to like argue here is that rest doesn't have to be disruptive. It doesn't have to take up a bunch of your time. It doesn't have to like mean that you have to take a significant amount of time away from your daily routines and the things that you really like have to do and the things that you want to do. Um, but it just means that we have to be intentional about it. When you commit to an ongoing practice of rest, there's cumulative benefits of like that process of renewal and restoration. So in the system where you know we live under this premise that we're supposed to just keep working harder, achieving more, making more money, climbing whatever ladder it is that we're told to climb, where we outsource our identities to our job titles and the things that we own. Choosing to rest is a signal to our bodies that we are no longer playing by that rule book. We're led to believe that rest is weakness or laziness. We feel guilty when we're not accomplishing something or checking off a to-do list item. Like on a day off of work or kids' activities or other obligations, how many of you decide that you're going to like sit down and read a good fiction book instead of tackling your to-do list? I would guess not many, right? Like, I can't tell you how many times I felt it myself, or I've heard it from other people in my life. Like, I just I feel guilty staying home resting, or I had the day that I really could have done nothing, but I felt guilty, so instead I did this. Or even like I did rest. I lost track of time. Maybe I didn't even intentionally rest, but I lost track of time, and then later I felt bad that I didn't spend the afternoon doing X, Y, and Z. Like there's always some kind of guilt associated with rest. I think a lot of it's rooted in like a disconnection from ourselves and trust in ourselves and prioritizing the cues that our body sends us are just the needs of our bodies. Um the disconnection from all of that, which starts at a really, really young age. Um, I think one of the most important books that I've read about like rest, but even just like one of the most important books I've read just in my life recently, um, talks about the systemic issues that have disconnected us from rest. The book is Rest is Resistance by Trisha Hersey, and she's also the founder of the NAP Ministry. The whole book, it's such an important read, it's such a good book. I uh recommend a thousand percent getting the book. I um I have it on audio right now, and I go back and just like listen to different sections as a way to just remind myself of how important it is to rest. She says in the book, rest isn't just a personal self-care tool, it's a form of resistance against capitalist, white supremacist, patriarchal systems that measure worth by productivity, and that by taking rest, we're reclaiming agency over our bodies, time, and spirit. And going back to the idea of like how the disconnection from ourselves and the needs of our body starts at a really young age, she tells a story in the book. It's like it was really hard to listen to, but I think it's important to pass on here in this context. So she tells the story of an eight-year-old boy, and it's an example of how the system teaches us to stop trusting our bodies and instead, like way more heavily, this need to obey the rules over prioritizing our own needs. So she was volunteering in her son's classroom, and a little boy who's eight, he tells the teacher that he needs to use the restroom. And the teacher says, No, the bathroom break isn't taking place for another 20 minutes. And so the boy then continues to like visibly cue that he has to go to the bathroom, right? You've all seen a child who has to go to the bathroom. I mean, I I probably do these things myself still if I if I have to go to the bathroom, like standing with their legs crossed, like holding themselves to an extent, squirming around, and the teacher um just she continued to ignore his cueing. And so after, you know, however long of the wiggling and really needing to go, but also knowing that he needed to obey the rules, he eventually like relieved his bladder on himself. And aside from like the utter humiliation he faced and the fact that like he could carry that with him for his entire school years. I mean, honestly, he could carry it with him forever. It's humiliation. Like, that's a really, really heavy thing for an eight-year-old to feel. But he also learned that his own needs are less important than the need to be obedient. And like in that moment, it's also how we seed guilt and shame stories and and failure stories that, like, you know, he should have been able to control his body's need, but that he failed because he still ended up disrupting the class. And so this is how, like, this is how these seeds are planted really young, where we learn to ignore our own needs in favor of, you know, whatever, whatever the conditioning is, silence, obedience, whatever it is. Um, and we learn not to trust ourselves. And so, you know, it's the same thing when we when we learn to ignore the exhaustion that we're feeling, the cues that our body is sending us that say, like, you're emotionally exhausted, you're feeling really drained, you really need a day of rest. You really need whatever it is, it might not, you know, whatever your body's needs are, we we push them aside. We tell them that we tell ourselves, like, I should be able to do more, I should be able to do this. I, you know, with my mental strength, I can overcome this, or it will get better when I just need to push through. Um, you know, have you guys heard people say, like, or hashtags like I'll rest when I'm dead? Like, all of that's really toxic. All of that, those are the stories that like we tell ourselves in the back of our mind. Those are like the lines that repeat in our heads as we're bypassing our own needs in favor of like um like playing by the rule book. Okay, so why is rest so important? Um, so rest like it's not just about naps or good quality sleep or sitting with your feet up. Um, it also means resting, like there's there's several different, there's actually seven different types of essential rest. So there's physical rest, mental rest, emotional rest, social, sensory, spiritual, and creative rest. And we're gonna dive into those in a little bit, but it like real rest requires an ongoing commitment across that spectrum of rest. This doesn't mean that you need to, you know, have creative rest every day, but having an awareness of what that means and building in some sort of like intentional rest toolkit is really important. Um, so cognitive load theory, for example, says that the brain has limited working memory and without breaks, overload occurs, which leads to fatigue, error, and poor retention. So if the brain has limited working memory, but we're pushing ourselves to the maximum every day, all day, you know, think about um, think about what retention might look like. Spacing out, for example, isn't wasted time. So when we space out, it helps us integrate information and gain access to deeper insights. So when you step away from a problem, it allows for unconscious processing to happen. Those like aha moments or you know, the answers that pop in that like seem like they're coming in from out of nowhere, um, those often come during rest or just after rest, um, not when you're in an actual like working or productive state. Um, another example of why rest is important is like um so like continuous exposure to noise, screens, bright lights, um, other sensory input over stimulates a nervous system. And research shows that when you have chronic sensory input, it increases cortisol or stress hormones and sympathetic nervous system activity. Sympathetic nervous system is that fight or flight state of the nervous system. So when you're constantly exposed to these like sensory stimuli, your fight or flight system is being activated more often. And so when you don't get a break from this flood of stress, so you know, all day you are being swarmed by sensory overload, whether that's at work, it's kids screaming, it's the news on in the background, it's the cluttered kitchen counter, it's the work, you know, computer desktop with way too many icons or tabs open, and then you're scrolling your phone at night, and after bed you're trying to fall asleep, but you're scrolling your phone first to fall asleep, your body ultimately loses its ability, like it's a flexibility in going back and forth between sympathetic and parasympathetic states of your nervous system. So, again, sympathetic being fight or flight, parasympathetic being rest and digest. That's that state of like renewal that you want your nervous system to live within. But constant stress flooding through your body makes it a lot harder to switch between those states of the nervous system, which means it's a lot easier for you to get stuck in dysregulation. But this like idea of flower inspiration, like a flow state, emerges after rest. So, studies on creativity, for example, show that breakthroughs usually come after periods of like detachment or relaxation, not while forcing productivity. So, even though I hate this idea of like rest being productive, because I don't think that we should be tying productivity to our idea of rest, um rest really does have an impact ultimately on our productivity. So, what happens when we don't rest? Um, when we don't rest, we disconnect from this like necessary period of integration and recovery that our body really needs to heal and renew. And like through that process in an ongoing way, we lose connection with that like creativity inspiration, problem solving, out-of-box thinking. And then, as we've talked about in recent episodes, like it's that chronic state of stress and disconnection that ultimately leads us to a burnout state. So I want to talk also not just about like why rest is so important, but how to actually practice rest. Um, there are a lot of like stories that we tell ourselves that prevent us from rest. And I think it's really important to deconstruct those stories in order to fully embrace rest as part of our routines. And, you know, some of the ways that you can do that, um, one thing that's really important is like even just simply giving yourself permission to rest, releasing any attachment to shame or guilt around the idea of rest. And if you, you know, make time for rest and you feel that it still feels like a guilty pleasure, again, I hate that, I hate that term, guilty pleasure, because something that's bringing you like pleasure and joy shouldn't also have guilt associated with it. You should just like lean in fully to the things that are bringing you joy and pleasure. But anyway, if if you're finding that it is like creating this feeling of it being a guilty pleasure, I encourage you to dive into that with like a little bit more curiosity. Maybe journal about it a little bit. You know, why is it that you are feeling guilty when you rest? Um what do your rest routines look like right now? And was rest ever modeled to you as a child? Just think through the factors in your life, the experiences that you've had that have contributed to the story that's like shaping your idea of rest, and rest being, you know, maybe laziness or weakness or whatever it is that you're associating with it. Do some pre-journaling around that and see, you know, where that takes you. Um, you know, another one is like just developing an understanding that we need cycles of integration and renewal if we also want to be able to live in that place of inspiration and flow. So again, not I mean, you could view it, you could frame rest as productive if you want, if that helps you, or um, you can just you can frame rest as a necessary part of achieving whatever it is that you want to achieve in your life, you know, whatever success means for you, whatever impact that you want to make on the world, however you want to spend your days in, you know, a place of like expansion and balance in order to exert effort and do so in a way that's really like meaningful and impactful, you have to also have cycles of rest. And so just building your understanding, building your vocabulary around that, I think is really important. Um, another way to work rest into your daily life is to schedule it like you would any other appointment on your calendar. So, you know, if there's a restful practice that you want to take every day, maybe over lunch, you want to take a walk in nature, you know, outside tech-free for 10 minutes, put it on your calendar. And if you, you know, some if you're sharing a calendar with someone at home, someone at work, you don't want them to know what it is, just you know, write appointment or um integration or something like that. But schedule it and stick to it just like you would any other important appointment on your calendar. Another tip is to practice listening to and honoring the cues of your body. So really tuning into what your body's telling you that it needs. You know, maybe it has to do with rest, maybe it's like um you're starting with hunger, maybe, you know, and any signal that your body is telling you, tune in. Maybe you write it down, maybe you're doing a body scan meditation regularly just to notice how your body's feeling, but just starting to draw your awareness into your body is a really important step in being able to recognize the cues of um, you know, what it is that your body is asking for. And then making a commitment to honoring those cues is equally as important. Another tip that I think has been really helpful for me, especially as I've like shifted into balancing more rest into my life is starting with micro moments of rest. So, you know, we I know that we can't just jump right into taking three days off whenever we need it, right? Like um, and sometimes that is what we need, honestly. Like uh, you know, as someone who has a nervous system disorder, I know that when I get to the point that I'm moving towards overwhelm or my nervous system is moving into a space of dysregulation, I know that I do need something that's a little bit more drastic in order to reset myself. And, you know, it might happen a few times a year, depending on what's been going on in life and with the kids and everything. Um, but I do know that I need a period of total sensory deprivation. And I know that if I don't honor that, that I will ultimately move into some sort of flare-up. You know, it might not be significant, but it will impact how I'm able to show up for myself and my kids and my husband, my family, my work. And so being able to honor that, that's a really hard thing. Like that, you know, it took a lot of practice in overcoming guilt, you know, around that, like the guilt of like, why do I need time away from like my family in order to reset and shame? There's shame stories that are attached to that as well. But all of those are, you know, socially and culturally constructed. All of those, all of that guilt and shame is something that I acquired through the rule book, you know, this like rule book that I subscribed to that I didn't mean to, but I did. And so the process for that really looks like for me, like journaling through why am I feeling guilt and shame around this? And how how will I show up for myself and my family with the rest, you know, with this like intensive sensory deprivation type rest? And how will I show up without it? And what is the version of me? Like, who do I want to be? Who do I want to be for my family? And like, if I can't be that version, you know, of myself as I am right now, then what do I need to do to get there? And sometimes that means that I do need a more intensive rest break. And so, you know, now I can take those without feeling guilty because I know that it's it's in my best interest and it's in my kids' best interest and in everyone else's best interest that I interact with on a day-to-day basis. So um, but back to micro moments of rest, uh, on the complete opposite side of that, there are ways that we can incorporate micro moments of rest into our schedules every day. So, like practicing gratitude is a restful activity. And so maybe in the morning while you're brewing coffee, it's like uh these are the boundaries. Nobody talks to me during this time. This is my own time to sit quietly and even just think about three gratitude practices, like three things that you're grateful for, not necessarily writing them down or making some sort of like formal practice. Um, it could be spending two minutes in your car, maybe before like picking your kids up from daycare, or before going home after an appointment. Especially, this is especially helpful if you're going from one stressful environment into another environment. It does, it doesn't need to be a stressful one, but um you know, if like releasing the stress of one environment before you enter another one is really helpful. Like, you know, it keeps you from carrying work stress into the family environment or family stress into a social environment. And so taking, you know, a minute or two to just intentionally pause can be really restful and restorative and a great way to process some of that stress out of your body so that you can sort of reset and restart using red lights as reset lights. So maybe it's not taking a minute or two before you, you know, shift from one environment to another, but maybe it's, you know, I think there's a lot of times we get stopped at a red light and it can be a source of frustration. We're always running behind, there's always somewhere we need to be. But what if you took a moment at that red light and just took a really deep grounding breath or two? Um, you know, the science behind deep breathing, there's there are so many benefits to it. But one of the um, it's one of the quickest ways to activate your parasympathetic nervous system. So that rest and digest phase. So if you're, you know, especially if you're noticing that you're kind of like high strung or um a little on edge or punchy, irritable, taking a couple of really deep grounding breaths activates the vagus nerve, which in turn switches your body into that restful state of the nervous system. You could also create a playlist that feels rejuvenating, you know, songs that just make you feel good or happy. Um you could spend a couple of minutes outside each day with your bare feet in the grass. And this is grounding, it's reconnecting to the energy of the earth and helping you feel um just like, yeah, stable and grounded, and it helps regulate your nervous system. There are there's tons of other micro moments of rest, tons of other ways that you can practice rest on you know a really small scale basis. Um, but really I think it's about creating routines. Um, it's about being really, really intentional about how you're going to incorporate rest into your life. I think a lot of us spend some portion of our lives in a dysregulated state. Um, you know, I think that the amount of stress that we're all experiencing on a day-to-day basis right now is uh tremendous. And I don't, you know, I know that we don't all have the tools to process that stress daily, you know, to release the stress. Instead, it just builds and builds and builds. And I think that there's a lot of like functional freeze happening, right? Like we are functional on the outside, we're holding it all together, where high functioning is another way to say it, where everything looks fine on the outside, but inside, like we're really struggling. And so when you are living in that fragile state, it's really hard to do something different. It's really, really hard to make a choice to include rest in your life, in your you know, regular routines. If you're not intentional about it, if you don't make a schedule of how you're going to like incorporate rest into your life, your nervous system is probably going to like help you forget because your nervous system's job is to help you like help you feel safe. And entering something new, like anything that involves change or newness, can be a threat to the safety of the nervous system, especially when you're living in dysregulation. And so if you don't have it written down, if you don't have some sort of like intentional practice that you can follow on you know a weekly basis, then it's really easy to just like bypass this process altogether. So um, and I don't mean like you don't need to have 10 New things a day. Like we have to be realistic about this, right? But like, say you have just like one thing that you want to do every single day, and then maybe you have like a weekly practice or a monthly practice, like putting calendar appointments on your you know, calendar for some of those um non-daily things or daily. I don't like that many notifications on my on my calendar, but however it works for you, you know, like um maybe it's that you're gonna spend 20 minutes every day without screens, like you're just gonna leave your phone in another room of the house for 20 minutes, right? Finding ways to infuse your life with more tech-free time is really important. Maybe it's putting your phone down um an hour before bed and reading a book at night instead. And that's something that you can maybe do on a daily basis. It's just like a habit that you are gonna track. But again, even if it's, you know, if it's not something that you want to have to actually like check off a box about, it's still really important to somehow create that reminder for yourself. I think, you know, some studies say it takes like 21 days to form a habit. And so, however long, you know, try for 21 days um writing it down, and then maybe after that you feel that it's a more natural part of your routine. But especially in that first week, if you don't have a reminder that it's something that you want to commit to all the time that just takes forgetting it once, and then you know, it's so quickly out of sight, out of mind. So anyway, um, okay, so I want to talk about the seven types of rest and provide just like a couple of suggestions on how you can invite each of these types of rest into your life. And again, it doesn't have to happen on a daily or weekly basis, but I think having an idea of what each of these types of rest like mean. I think I think like a lot of times like a little alert will go off as we're you know hearing these things, and it's like, oh, I hadn't even thought about that, but I know I'm like feeling a little bit unbalanced in that way. Um, so maybe it'll just like spark something for you that you hadn't that you hadn't really thought about as being like either something that's contributing to overwhelm or like um a deficit of like meaning or connection to something else. So um, okay, that's this is what I mean by that. So physical rest is the first essential type of rest. And you know, that one's pretty self-explanatory, but giving your body time and space to like repair, recover, renew, restore energy, when you don't get enough physical rest, um, it actually leads to your stress hormones staying high. And when your stress hormones are high, you can't shift back into that like rest and digest state of the nervous system. You get stuck in survival mode. So, you know, if you're noticing the pattern here, really like it's the high level of stress that we really need to figure out how to work out of your body. So we need to figure out where the stress is coming from and then how you can work it through and then out of your body so that you can find more like you know, moments of restoration and and balance. So a couple ways to practice physical rest. I think this is probably one of the easiest ones for us to come up with. But here are a few ideas that were top of mind for me. So, like naps or short restorative breaks, like a five, five-minute break from, you know, like like there'll be times that I'm like coming home exhausted from a day of like, you know, Saturday. We've got like five football and two soccer games, and another kid's got a birthday party, and I come home and I'm like, I need to just like quickly straighten up the kitchen, and then I really need to like sit down and put my feet up for 10 minutes. But um cleaning up the kitchen turns into, you know, cleaning up the family room, and then one of the kids needs help in their room for something, and then you know, you get stuck like um cleaning up a mess that the four-year-old made, and then all of a sudden it's time to start making dinner, and so then we're making dinner and we're serving dinner and then cleaning up from dinner, and then it's been like six hours after like coming home and being like, I really need 10 minutes of rest. It's now been like six hours, and I forgot to prioritize that 10 minutes of rest, and now I'm like extra exhausted, and so really like just making those like short restorative breaks, even if it's not a nap, because that's not always realistic, like making sure that those happen. Um, putting your feet up, but better yet, putting your feet up above your heart, which also improves circulation and releases tension. So um you could like lay with your feet up the wall for 10 minutes, and that might actually have more of a restorative impact than like just sitting down on like the couch for 10 minutes. Good practice, gentle foam rolling, or simply just pausing, closing your eyes, and taking a deep breath. Again, that like deep breath that activates the vagus nerve. That's like you know, bonus points for that. Okay, the next type of rest is mental rest. So here you are giving your brain a break from constant input, problem solving, um, just yeah, constantly like thinking and focusing. Um, I mentioned cognitive load theory earlier. So, this idea that the brain has limited working memory without breaks, the overload occurs, which leads to fatigue, errors, and poor retention. So this really just speaks to the fact that like we need to rest our brains, we need to release all that our minds are carrying from time to time. You know, that like never-ending to-do list, or um, you know, there are times that I can't like write something down and I'll like have all of these thoughts whirling and I'll start to count them so that I can be like, when I finally write them down, I've got seven things, or you know, and so like keeping paper nearby to write those things down is really helpful. And also from time to time doing just like a total brain dump. When you feel overwhelmed, take 20 minutes and just write every thought that is swirling through your mind, put it on paper, and then like to make sense of it, you can go back through later, you can go back through afterwards and like circle the things that you need to remember or convert them into a to-do list, or you know, some of them you can just like intentionally release and do that by being like, okay, this item I don't need to think about anymore, like this is unnecessary, um, and it's unnecessarily weighing on my mind. Like, if you actually name it, it like helps in releasing it, and then like just circle the things that you really need to focus on and figure out how you want to categorize that information. But putting it down on paper in like by way of a brain dump is really helpful in like easing what your mind has to carry. Um, you know, we can also limit news and social media intake, especially before bedtime, or use like the brain break role. So for every 50 minutes of focus, give your mind like five to ten minutes to like wander afterwards. Emotional rest is creating intentional space where you don't have to carry, suppress, or manage heavy emotions, yours or someone else's. And this one's really hard, especially as um moms a lot of the time you carry like a lot of the extra emotional labor. And so we're used to carrying our own emotions, and also like we carry a lot of extra emotional weight for kids, anyone that we are, you know, a caregiver for, anyone that's like in our anyone close to us that we worry about. Um, you know, you don't have to be a mom. I'm just thinking of the, you know, the idea that like moms do carry just like so much more of the emotional labor, generally speaking, but anyone in your life that you're worrying about, you're you know, you're probably doing a little bit of extra emotional work for. Um, there's research that shows that repressed emotions don't vanish. So even if you're not feeling them consciously, you're stuffing them down and your subconscious body is still feeling them. And research shows that like suppressing your emotion increases physiological stress. So it leads to higher heart rates, higher cortisol levels. So the idea here is that it's really important to start like naming your emotions, honoring your emotions, and figuring out how to process them. So stream of conscious journalism or journaling, stream of conscious journaling, practicing self-compassion. So talking to yourself as you would talk to a friend with compassion, hugging a loved one or a pet. I love this one. Research shows that a 30-second hug, whether it's a human or a pet, releases oxytocin in your body, so like the bonding hormone and reduces stress hormones. All right, here's one of my favorites: sensory rest. So giving your nervous system a break from constant stimulation. I call them nervous system pings. Um, some of these are really obvious. You know, some of these are like the exposure to just like constant noise and screens and bright lights. Um, but some of them happen unconsciously. Like we don't realize how much the like countertop clutter or desktop clutter is like bothering us, or having, you know, those like harsh white lights, um, those are actually like harder on the nervous system than if you get that like soft yellow light. The soft yellow lighting mimics a more natural lighting, and so it's a lot easier on your nervous system. And so there's a lot of these like sensory stimuli that we really don't pay attention to because you know we're paying attention to 20,000 other things, but um releasing some of those, being aware of some of those, is really important because when you are chronically exposed to like a ton of different like sensory input, it research shows that it does increase your cortisol and your sympathetic nervous system activity. So that fight or flight state. So you can silence notifications on your device, clean out a junk drawer that's been bothering you, or simplify like a room or a counter space in your house, like where you spend a lot of your time. Clean out your email inbox. Yikes, I know that one's hard for some of us. Um, simplify your desktop icons, remove strong fragrances from your home, especially fragrances that smell like artificial or chemical in nature, anything that's more like natural, um, you know, like lavender essential oil, it won't be as hard on your nervous system usually unless it's like really strong. Um, because you know, things that are like generally more natural, our body has a better idea, like um integrating. Okay, social rest. So this is the kind of rest that you get from like social relationships and interactions that like it can it can work both ways. So you get it's restful when you're spending time with people who recharge you, and it's depleting when you're spending time with people who drain you. So um, you know, basically like when you're around people with whom like you can drop that like mask or let down your guard, you spend less mental and emotional energy. So that frees up resources ultimately for other things. But the opposite is also true when you're spending a lot of time with people who drain your energy, you're really like depleting your resources more quickly. So here you can like take a break from relationships that where you feel like you have to overperform, practice setting boundaries, especially with people who are like emotionally demanding. Um, release the need to respond to a text message or a phone call right away, of course, unless it's an emergency. Um, and then you could also like schedule downtime after social events before you jump back into your obligations so that you can recharge a little bit in between, because especially in like larger groups, some of it might be energizing, some of it might be draining, and so having some downtime to reset is really important. The sixth type of rest is spiritual rest, and so in talking about spiritual rest here, I generally mean this is more of like a positive effort type thing. So reconnecting to a sense of meaning, belonging, or even transcendence, connection to meaning reduces stress. Positive psychology shows that like people with a strong sense of purpose generally have lower stress levels and greater resilience. So, you know, here it might be like journaling about your values to understand what really matters most to you, volunteering with an organization, especially one that's like in alignment with your values. You might practice connecting to your intuition through a stream of conscious journaling. Um, you could use Oracle or tarot cards to reconnect with your intuition. That's a really fun one to play with if you're open to it. Um, but at the same time, like practicing earthing, forest bathing, walking in nature, anything to keep you grounded because too much spirituality, too much time in that like higher dimension, um, you know, seventh um seventh chakra like type work can keep you untethered in some way. So making sure that you're staying grounded is really important. All right, the last type of rest that I want to cover is creative rest. So this one can work both ways. Sometimes if we're spending too much time in creativity, we need a break. But sometimes it's the creativity that fuels us. So this will really be it's it's an individual thing, it's really rooted in how you spend your life, how you spend your time. Um, but giving yourself space to uh receive inspiration instead of constantly forcing output. So like it's about nurturing your imagination with experiences that like fill you up. Um, overusing creative energy causes idea of fatigue. So, you know, you have to also give that, give you know your creativity some rest if you're overusing it. So, ways that you can reconnect with like inspiration and creativity would be visit a museum or a gallery, take in the art without like analyzing it at all. Take a walk somewhere new to experience new places or travel to experience a new culture, doodle, sketch, um, paint freely without any attachment to the outcome. You can't don't tell yourself, you know, I'm a horrible artist. Just pick colors you love, pick a paintbrush that feels good, and just paint. And if you have to paint over what you painted, um, just enjoy like the blending of the colors and how that looks or how the feeling of the paintbrush like feels in your hand. Um, it can be just like really rejuvenating. I find it's actually really like meditative and restorative too. So um I I will have like creative practices that I'll lean into, and I find that um yeah, I can almost like tap into a meditative state at the same time if it's just repetitive. So okay, those are the seven types of rest. And before I go, I want to just give you a heads up about a new tool that I'm really excited to be launching. I'm launching it's a um burnout reset suite of tools. I'm starting with a couple of courses, and the courses have been developed under this premise that like true healing and expansion and transformation happens at the intersection of mind, body, and soul. So I think sometimes when we focus on healing and transformation, like there's a tendency to focus heavily on the mindset, right? Like if I think it, I can bring it to life. Like think positive thoughts. Um, you know, where you put your mind is is where your actions go. But a lot of like this risks bypassing long-lasting change because you can't create change from a dysregulated nervous system. You can't create change when you're disconnected from your body and from recognizing the cues in your body and you know, incorporating restful practices. And at the same time, connecting with your why, but at like a really deep level is really important in helping us understand who we are and what meaning and purpose look like for us. So this suite of tools is really meant to help us approach like burnout, but also like expansion and transformation, like growing our businesses, um realigning our businesses, reconnecting with purpose in our lives. Um, you know, these tools are meant to help us through that process, and each one is offered through sort of like a more narrow lens. So keep an eye out for the first one. It's um, you know, called Back into the Body. It's all about reconnecting with your body, deconstructing the stories that you tell yourself about rest, and ultimately like creating a personalized rest and recovery toolkit. So um that's available on my website. And next week I'm really excited to share an interview with you that I had recently with an amazing woman who talks about the role of anxiety and how anxiety and depression, you know, shaped her life, but what it looked like to reclaim her power and reinvent her life. She's now a hypnotist, um, helping people like reconnect with purpose and overcome the parts of their life that really like limit them and hold them back. So stay tuned for this conversation next week. I'm really excited to share it with you. All right, guys. See you later.