Image credit - Tima Miroshnichen, Pexels. Image of a person sitting on blankets and pillows holding a large mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows on top. A book is open next to them and they are surrounded by fairy lights.

It’s nearly Christmas! Season of getting trampled whilst shopping, stressing about making everything perfect, saying yes to things you don’t have time for and running around like a turkey making a bid for freedom.

In our society, busyness and productivity are praised and rewarded. A full calendar is a sign of success. And at this time of year, that goes into overdrive. You’re exhausted, but a quick look through your social feed tells you you’re not doing enough. Everyone compares themselves to others and feels they have to do more and buy more to make Christmas perfect. So they push through to get themselves over the festive finish line.

Rest has become something we have to earn, a reward after we’ve worked hard enough, cared enough, achieved enough. Yet true rest isn’t a luxury. It’s a basic human need. And choosing it, in a culture that glorifies busyness, is a radical act.

The Cost of Constant Doing

When you push through exhaustion, you send your body a message: Your needs don’t matter right now. And if you do that often enough, and your body starts to believe you. The result? Burnout. Irritability. Overwhelm. A kind of hollow tiredness that sleep alone can’t fix.

Your body and mind were never designed for constant acceleration. They’re built for rhythm, for cycles of doing and being, action and integration, movement and stillness. When you ignore those rhythms, your system becomes dysregulated. Your focus fades, your emotions swing, and your sense of connection begins to fray.

Tiredness isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s your body telling you it needs to rest.

Rest as Resistance

Slowing down is an act of rebellion against a world that measures worth by output. It’s a way of saying, I am more than what I produce.

When you rest, you are reclaiming ownership of your energy. You can return to your own pace. Remind yourself that you’re a human being, not a human doing.

Rest allows your nervous system to reset. It opens space for reflection, creativity, and emotional regulation. And in that stillness, you rediscover what truly matters, not what’s urgent, but what’s meaningful to you.

Simple Ways to Begin

You don’t need to take a week off or meditate for hours. Rest can start in tiny, ordinary moments that reconnect you with your breath, your body, and your sense of presence.

Here are some simple things you can try.

Pause before switching tasks. Notice your breath before you move on to the next thing.
Take 30 seconds to exhale. One full, conscious exhale can calm your nervous system.
Look up. Glance out a window. Let your eyes rest on something natural, even briefly.
Close the day softly. Instead of scrolling, ask: What helped me exhale today?

Rest isn’t always sleep. Sometimes it’s stillness. Sometimes it’s laughter. Sometimes it’s just allowing yourself to be, without expectaion or judgement.

Relearning How to Rest

Many of us have forgotten how to truly rest because we associate stillness with guilt.
When you pause, the mind often tells you what else you should be doing, if you let it, it will give you a new ‘to do’ list.

That’s okay. You can meet that voice with compassion: “Thank you for trying to keep me safe, but I’m allowed to rest.”

Rest is not avoidance. It’s repair. It’s where integration happens, where experiences settle and the body finds its balance again.

A New Kind of Productivity

When you slow down, you don’t lose time, you gain clarity. Clarity on what really matters, and where you should be spending your time and attention.
Rest sharpens focus, steadies emotion, and deepens presence. You return to action more centered and capable, not less.

In this way, rest isn’t the opposite of productivity, it’s what makes productivity sustainable.

Where do you start?

Think about how you could build small moments of rest into your day, not as an indulgence, but as a form of self-respect.

Maybe it’s turning off notifications for a while. Maybe it’s saying no without apology or setting new boundaries. Maybe it’s letting yourself do nothing, and trusting that “nothing” is enough.

When you slow down you remember your own rhythm. You have the time and space to reconnect with what’s really important to you, and realise what you can let go of. And in a world that never stops moving, especially at Christmas, that might be the most radical thing you can do.

If you’re interested in finding out more about being present and reconnecting with yourself, why not join one of my mindfulness for life courses starting soon. You can find out more here.

Is Resting a Radical Act? How Slowing Down Can Help You Reconnect.