The Art of Stillness - Reclaiming Rest in a World That Won’t Stop

Today we challenge the idea that rest is laziness and instead explore how stillness is essential—biologically, emotionally, and spiritually. From the science behind sleep to the emotional strength required to slow down, we talk about why rest isn’t a reward—it’s a necessity. This episode offers a new way to view rest: not as a weakness, but as a powerful act of self-love, healing, and resistance. Let’s rest and listen in today and get recharged!

Transcript

Thank you for listening once again or thank you for finding us today. If you’re listening I bet you’re feeling crazy busy and maybe wondering how to slow down..or maybe someone cares about you to send this to you and wants you to rest and be around in their lives a bit longer. In our last episode we focused on silent wins and this week we keep the quiet theme going by focusing on rest and recharging. In a world that idolizes hustle culture and constant productivity, the concept of stillness is often misunderstood. We’re told to “grind harder,” “sleep when we’re dead,” and “always be doing something.” Underneath these catch phrases lies a deep-rooted and outdated belief that if you’re resting, you’re lazy. And while some may think that this belief is to help motivate you, is this belief actually true—or is it doing more harm than good? We As a society are dealing with more burnout, more mental health crises, and the unsustainable nature of 24/7 productivity than ever before and we really need to change this. Stillness isn’t lazy; it’s essential. It’s healing. It’s powerful. And more than anything, it’s time we reclaim it.

Modern society with all it’s instant notifications, instant gratifications, and instant everything is driven by performance metrics—grades, promotions, followers, deadlines. From a young age, we’re taught to keep winning, keep going, compare, compare, compare and then do better. Rest becomes a reward after all this and not a need or a right.We start to equate rest with idleness, and idleness with laziness.

In capitalist societies especially, value is often linked with output. People are praised for being “busy,” admired for their packed schedules, and even envied for being overwhelmed—as though stress is a badge of honor. On the flip side, stillness—a moment of doing nothing, saying nothing, producing nothing—is seen as unproductive at best and shameful at worst. But we then ignore a fundamental truth about human beings: we are not machines. We are human beings, not human doings. In denying ourselves rest, we are not being more efficient; we are operating at a deficit. And I don’t just mean sleep...I mean the rest that every part of you needs from your brain, to your body, to the depths of your soul.

From a biological standpoint, rest is not optional—it is critical for survival. Sleep, the most obvious form of rest, supports memory consolidation, hormone regulation, immune function, and cellular repair. The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke state that “Most adults need 7-9 hours of sleep a night...In general, people are getting less sleep than they need due to longer work hours and the availability of round-the-clock entertainment and other activities. Many people feel they can "catch up" on missed sleep during the weekend, but depending on how sleep-deprived they are, sleeping longer on the weekends may not be enough to replace the sleep they've missed.” Studies note that sleep helps with focus and concentration—and it allows the brain to clean out and organize—all of which are critical to learning. It helps people regulate their emotionsand better manage the physical and psychological effects of stress. Sleep influences a person’s ability to recognize danger and threat and helps with sound judgment, good decision making, and other executive functions of your brain. Research shows that “sleeping on” a complex problem improves a person’s chance of solving it Sleep provides the release of growth hormone necessary for the body’s tissues to grow and repair damage and supports our immune functions allowing the body to fight off diseases and infections.

 Just one sleepless night can make it harder for you to focus and think clearly, more likely to feel irritable and make bad decisions when you haven’t had enough sleep. And sleep deprivation significantly elevates your riskof making a mistake at work or having a car accident. And this compounds quickly if you don’t get good sleep night after night by suppressing your immune system, increasing your risk of developing heart problems, type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, It can interfere with your metabolism leading to obesity which can compound the physical problems I just mentioned. And it can negatively impact your relationships at work or at home and lead to increased depression and anxiety. 

But it’s not just sleep...you need quiet and rest while you’re awake for your emotional health which can then lead into your physical health. Beyond sleep, quiet wakefulness and intentional pauses throughout the day have been shown to improve focus, creativity, and emotional regulation. Stillness engages the parasympathetic nervous system—the body’s natural "rest and digest" mode. This state counters the “fight or flight” stress response that used to protect us from tigers and predators and now has us running constantly with job and other life stressors...the parasympathtic countering response of stillness helps to reduce cortisol levels and promote recovery. Things like meditation, deep breathing, or simply sitting in silence allow the body and mind to restore itself.

When we ignore these needs, our bodies eventually force us to pay attention—through illness, tiredess, anxiety, or burnout. We’ve seen it...someone is pushing themselves so hard and they feel it in their body, their blood pressure rising, their back aching but they don’t listen. So their body reminds them more harshly to listen, they get sick regularly. And when they don’t listen the body gets even louder and maybe eventually creates a long term disease or heart attack in an effort to say...please, slow the heck down and chill. Rest isn’t a luxury; it’s preventative medicine. 

So how does mindfulness play into this rest and why is it not lazy? Practices like yoga, mindful breathing, and silent retreats are gaining mainstream acceptance as tools to cultivate inner peace and mental clarity because so many of us can’t just chill on our own and we are turning to gurus and retreats to show us the way. These practices are not about doing nothing for the sake of nothingness. They are about creating space. Stillness offers the mind a break from the noise, the body a chance to breathe, and the soul a moment to reconnect with what matters. In mindfulness, stillness isn’t passive—it’s active attention. It requires attention to sit with discomfort, to face the thoughts we’ve been running from, and to observe without judgment. In this way, stillness becomes a form of strength, not weakness and when we appear to be doing nothing as we sit in silence, we are in fact doing more good for us than days, weeks, of workouts.

Throughout history, rest has been revered in ways that modern culture has largely forgotten. In many traditional spiritual spaces, stillness is sacred.

• In Christianity, the concept of a day of rest—is central to spiritual health and communal life.
• In Buddhism, meditation is the path to enlightenment, achieved through stillness of mind and body.
• Even ancient Greek philosophy, Aristotle acknowledged the value of leisure as necessary for contemplation and the flourishing of the soul.

These philosophies understood thousands of years go what we are only beginning to remember now: rest isn’t the opposite of productivity. It is what enables meaningful action.

But choosing rest sometimes is seen as radical. Activist and founder of The Nap Ministry, Tricia Hersey, writes about rest as resistance. She argues that rest is a spiritual and political practice—a way to reclaim our humanity from systems that treat people as machines. Her work encourages us to view napping, slowing down, and unplugging not as laziness, but as liberation...I would say it’s a way to take back our power as a human being. To rest in a world that demands our constant output is to say: I am enough as I am. I do not need to earn my worth. I deserve to rest and recharge without having to prove it.

So let’s think about how we define productivity and maybe that’s part of the problem. When productivity is measured solely by how much we do, and not about what we do and why...We may get a lot done—but at what cost? Studies have shown that countries that have lower hours worked like Germany and Denmark actually have higher productivity and more employee well-being and motivation A Study from Stanford University showed that productivity drops significantly after 50 hours of work per week and in fact that working past 55 hours brings no benefits and can basically be considered a waste of time. And a study by Slack showed that people who work overtime showed 20% reduction in productivity. And working more than 40 hours a week directly impacts that wonderful needed sleep we spoke about and increases the risk and effects of depression and anxiety. Athletes understand this as we may all do when it comes to workouts... rest days are crucial for recovery and performance. Muscles don’t grow during workouts; they grow during rest. The same can be said for our minds and spirits.

True productivity is about intentionality...it’s not about doing all the things, all the time. It’s about doing the right things at the right time. It’s about alignment, not exhaustion. Adding stillness, and rest into our every day lives doesn’t hinder productivity—it enhances it. There have been numerous studies that show that rest improves concentration, problem-solving, and decision-making. Creativity often happens while you’re resting...have you had those time maybe in the shower, on a walk, or during a moment of quiet when you have great ideas, or a solution to a problem...this doesn’t typically happen in the middle of frantic multitasking. I know as I plan ideas for my podcast I’m regularly speaking into my phone while I’m walking or relaxing in other ways. My brain just flows to that creativity much easier then.

But what about the guilt of rest? Even when we know we need a break, we often feel bad for taking one to the point that we don’t think we should be taking that lunch...too much to do so let me eat at my desk. We check emails during vacations, apologize for sleeping in, and justify downtime by promising to work harder later. And there’s the people pleasing aspect of not taking rest...someone needs something from you, someone is counting on you to finish something, you’ve said you would do x by this date or you just don’t want to let someone down or let them think badly of you. But people pleasing at work has very short term feelings of success and is not sustainable in the long run. Burnout is not a badge of honor and do you really think that working so hard that you get yourself sick, maybe put yourself in the hospital or even just negatively affect your mental health so that you can’t keep being productive is what your boss wants? Of course not...and if they do or don’t care, then time to update your resume!

We put so much guilt on ourselves that our value is tied to our output. Overcoming this requires not just behavioral change, but a shift in self-perception and self worth and value. We have to start seeing ourselves as more than our jobs, more than what we can do for someone or something else, but as whole human beings with needs, limits, and emotions that require rest and stillness and we are worthy of it.

Maybe we need to unlearn that hard work value set that we has been ingrained into us by our parents, by the companies we work for, and by society as a whole. I don’t mean that you don’t work hard and feel proud of what you do...you can still do that but I mean re-learning to offer ourselves the care, compassion, and rest that we may not have been taught to value.

So how do we do this in little steps as you know that’s what we’re all about here, little steps. Reframing stillness doesn’t require drastic changes but it does require consistent changes, daily changes. It can start with small, intentional practices like

• Morning Stillness – Begin the day with five minutes of silence before checking your phone. Do a 5 min stretching or yoga routine and give yourself the gift of that time to gracefully start your day.
• Mindful Breaks – Step outside between meetings. Breathe. Notice your surroundings. Listen to the birds. Put your feet on the grass.
• Digital Detoxes – Unplug from devices for even half hour each day...turn off your email/Teams notifications while you’re having dinner with your family and let them know that each of them in your family including yourself is worth focusing on.
• Scheduled Rest – Block off time in your calendar not just for work, but for stillness. Schedule it in like an important meeting...and show up on time and ready to start doing intentional nothingness.
• Movement as Stillness – Get up from your desk for your breaks...or if you’re going to eat at your desk then only do so in order to use your actual break time to get up and change your space or go for a walk or gentle stretching to offer peace through motion.
• Creative Stillness – Draw...maybe keep one of those mindfulness drawing books and pencils nearby and just color. Or you let your mind wander and daydream...or listen, truly listen to music.

Making these small changes we begin to train ourselves—and our nervous systems—to value and trust stillness. And we begin to remind ourselves to prioritize our health and wellness over productivity. 

As we look to the future, redefining rest is not just a personal necessity—it’s a societal need and I see this in today’s world. There is so much stress, burnout and uncertainty it is more important than ever to take care of ourselves. The costs of burnout, anxiety, and chronic stress are mounting. At work you can help...when you see your coworker struggling, offer to take a quick walk with them. If you’re a manager, pay attention to your staff and lead by example and take breaks and rest. I remind my staff at work that even if you want to give 110%, that’s only 44 hours a week so don’t be working more than that! At home, let’s prioritize connection over constant activity...maybe we don’t need to have something going on every night of the week, soccer practice, violin lessons, ballet. In a world that is constantly on the go, we each have to take action to stop...to enjoy the nothingness, to give ourselves and those around us permission to slow down and take a breath.

Stillness isn’t lazy. It’s life-giving. It’s not a break from reality; it’s a return to it. In moments of stillness, we reconnect with ourselves, our purpose, and our place in the world. We are not designed to be constantly plugged in, perpetually performing. We are designed to breathe, to reflect, to be.

Thank you for listening today and I hope you share this episode with someone you know that needs to rest, that needs to slow down. And maybe you can encourage each other and just slow down and rest together. Breathe, and be still—not because you’ve earned it, but because you need it, and because you deserve it. So take that step today to unplug, to rest, to recharge...and then take that step every day to find your stillness....Because stillness, far from being lazy, might just be the most powerful thing you can do to bring back that feeling of peace and love for yourself and your life...little by little and peace by peace.