What is Rest and Why You May Not Actually Be Resting When You Think You Are

What Is Rest?

This is an invitation to pause and reflect on the last time you felt truly rested. When I say rested I don’t mean laying horizontally thinking about all the things on your to-do list or scrolling on your phone. I mean a prolonged state where you are: present, relaxed, engaged, soft, vulnerable, connected, refreshed, creative, open…Has it been days? Months? Years? While this list is not exhaustive, it provides a foundation for understanding what rest truly means from a nervous system perspective.

“Rest is not just physically lying down as we sometimes think about it when framed from the space of burnout/collapse. In fact, what is restful to the nervous system is often actions, experiences or practices that offer connection, creativity, restorative movement, play, self-reflection, stillness and engaging in spiritual practice.”

- Molly Schweers

Your nervous system decides when you feel different emotions, how you respond to those emotions, when you no longer have capacity to engage in certain experiences (especially traumatic or overwhelming

ones), and when it is safe to rest (Polyvagal Institute, 2024). These interoceptive emotional processes occur outside of conscious awareness (similar to the process of digestion and breathing… you don’t have to think about digesting food or even be aware of it, it just happens). Thus, understanding how your nervous system interacts with your environment to afford or restrict rest is important, especially in a fast-paced, individualistic culture that does not inherently value rest. Our culture is rooted in a continuous need for production, cuing our nervous system towards productivity as a means of survival. External contexts such as this, along with individual and relational factors, impact the natural regulatory processes of your nervous system and create a hostile environment for rest. Many folks come to therapy reporting that they are ruminating or ‘stuck in their head’ worrying, tasking, thinking, revisiting, replaying, problem solving, fixing or constantly processing information by way of thinking. This prolonged disconnection from the body in favor of living in ‘production mode’ sends the message to your nervous system that processing emotions, sensing into the subtle body and creating space for slowing down is “unsafe”. Despite rest being a natural regulatory capacity that our system has, when it has been coded with daily teachings that emotions are not safe to feel and there are stressors piling up personally and globally that require you to manage many complex emotions, there is simply no room for true rest. This leads to a subconscious ‘forgetting’ of how to downshift naturally into rest states (think: ‘use it or lose it’ and ‘neurons that fire together, wire together’). Similar to a muscle that doesn’t get used regularly and begins to degenerate and malfunction, the nervous system needs help practicing intentional rest to “turn on” the parasympathetic downregulatory processes of the body.

“The attunement practices will help engage the parasympathetic branch of your nervous system and support the restoration of natural rest networks. These practices also tap into adaptive emotion pathways and leave you with increased access to enjoyable emotions”.

- Jessica Cuttance

What we find as somatic trauma therapist is that most people don’t actually know what rest is and that is tragic when we consider how in need of it we all truly are. Even within therapy spaces we have used the words “manage” and “control” to talk about emotions. These words all have connections in our brain to using force. But that’s never been what it’s about. Our system is wise and has the natural capacity to rest when needed. It knows how to repair itself in the same way that your body artfully repairs a broken bone if provided a cast. The key is having the correct external conditions while simultaneously attuning to the body so your nervous system can process the necessary emotions and move you into rest. We were taught that rest is supposed to be an act of force or planful will but we can learn that rest is actually an an act of care because it invites connection to our own internal experience. It may feel uncomfortable or even scary to intentionally engage with rest since part of this process requires leaning into the emotions our nervous system is trying to feel (especially when we have subconsciously learned that emotions aren’t safe to feel.) But so many of us equate rest with burnout. Our bodies have gotten so used to collapsing because we have not been able to rest naturally and we now associate rest with being incapacitated. The thing is, if we rest when our body actually needs it or even just in preparation for energy expenditure, it actually takes less time and effort than pushing ourselves to the burnout stage before prioritizing our rest capacity. Rest is not just physically lying down as we sometimes think about it when framed from the space of burnout/collapse. In fact, what is restful to the nervous system is often actions, experiences or practices that offer connection, creativity, restorative movement, play, self-reflection, stillness, listening to sounds and engaging in spiritual practice.

Below are some offerings for tuning in and tending to yourself and your body. The attunement practices will help engage the parasympathetic branch of your nervous system and support the restoration of natural rest networks. These practices also tap into adaptive emotion pathways and leave you with increased access to enjoyable emotions.

PRACTICES FOR REST

Move Your Body

Our body carries a lot of our stress, so moving with the body allows for a discharge of survival energy. In other words, if we are present and intentionally moving the body our nervous system can’t help but consider that we are not actively surviving a threat and then allows for it to be more likely to discharge fight or flight energy in response. Some examples of how to intentionally move your body include:

  •  Shaking your whole body, stomping, dancing for 1-5 minutes to help discharge energy

  •  Swaying side to side with heavy arms, self-hugs, and slow circles of the wrist, ankles, and neck help to re-engage in the present

  • Doing some yoga poses or dynamic movement through the spine (maybe to your favorite song)

  •  Lifting the arms up to the sky on the inhale while looking up to the ‘horizon’ with your eyes; bringing the arms down on the exhale and returning eyes to center

Breathand Resonance

Our breathing and breath patterns are in a

sensitive relationship with our nervous

system and ability to perceive and orient to

‘safety’. How we breath is heavily impacted

by our nervous system’s response to how

safe and connected we feel. We can start to

breathe faster, forget to breathe, or notice

shallow breathing depending on different

factors. Paying attention to the quality,

resonance and quantity of breaths and

attuning to them can quickly orient your

nervous system to safety (knowing we are

safe is the first step in preparing for rest).

Breath Practices For Rest

  • 4-7-8 breath-inhale for a count of 4, hold for a count of 7, exhale for a count of 8

  • lunar breath-take a natural inhale through your nose, on the exhale open your mouth make a “th” with your tongue on your front teeth, take another inhale, on the next exhale you’re your mouth and constrict the back of your throat like your fogging up a mirror. Noticing the breath deepen as you go. Repeat that pattern 3-5 times or until your body says it’s enough.

Resonance

  • humming/singing

  • sounding into the body-place hands on the area of your body that you notice tension or discomfort. Move through the vowel sounds as hum, feeling the vibration where you’ve placed your hands

  • voo breath-take a natural inhale, it helps for it to be a deep one if that’s accessible. On the exhale make a “v” sound with your top teeth on your bottom lip as you hum. This exhale can be as long as is accessible pushing the air out. Repeat this 3-5 times or until your body says it’s enough.

(Lunar Breath, Sounding into the Body: Mischke-Reeds, 2018; Voo Breath: NICABM, 2020)


Connection:

Connection is the antidote to disembodiment and disconnection. The nervous system develops in response to our relationships and the external environment we find ourselves in. Therefore, connection allows for a process called ‘ co-regulation’ which is essentially the ability to harmonize with the other person’s nervous system in order to re- establish safety. When we are harmonizing with others we are able to move into the nervous system state where we feel safe and able to connect (this is called the ‘social engagement system’), which is also where we can find true rest. Consensual hugs, laughter, and simply

being present with another safe person are all examples of how our body experiences connection with others. It can also look like asking for help in places we are consistently struggling, maintaining eye contact with a loved one for a minute, putting down our phone when with friends or family, calling a friend or making plans to see someone so you can look forward to connection if it is not readily available to you, etc.

(Harmonizing: Menakem, 2017)


“We can observe that most everything in nature has periods of activity and rest too. The moon cycles waxing and waning, animals actively preparing to go into hibernation, and even the seasons of renewal, growth, release, and dormancy. “

- Molly Schweers

Honor Your Body’s Natural Cycles of Rest

We can observe that most everything in nature has periods of activity and rest. The moon cycles waxing and waning, animals actively preparing to go into hibernation, and even the seasons of renewal, growth, release, and dormancy. This can help us re-engage with our natural cycles and notice when we are pushing past our body’s signals to rest. This is an invitation to start tracking when you have abundant energy and when you are feeling exhausted. Do you notice any patterns or cycles? Can you listen to your body when it is time for rest?


(Further reading: You are the Medicine by Asha Frost-explores nature and animals as medicine

from an indigenous perspective and invites guidance from the bear to assist with rest around

hibernation; Wintering by Katherine May)


References

Frost, A. (2022). You are the medicine: 13 moons of Indigenous Wisdom, ancestral connection,

and animal spirit guidance. Hay House, Inc.


May, K. (2020). Wintering: the power of rest and retreat in difficult times. First American edition.

New York, Riverhead Books.


Menakem, R. (2017). My grandmother’s hands. Central Recovery Press.


Mischke-Reeds, M. (2018). Somatic psychotherapy toolbox: 125 worksheets and exercises to

treat trauma & stress. PESI Publishing & Media.


NICABM. (2020). A Simple Exercise to Ease Despair with Peter Levine, PhD. YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1bPdbBF1Ck


Polyvagal Institute. (2024). What is polyvagal theory?. Polyvagal Institute.

https://www.polyvagalinstitute.org/whatispolyvagaltheory

Based on the work of Dr. Stephen Porges.

Sharyn Button