Rest as a right, not a reward.
If Rest Makes You a Better Worker, Then Shouldn’t Work Make You a Better Rester?
We’ve heard it a hundred ways:
“Rest so you can come back stronger.”
“Recharge to be more productive.”
“Take a break to crush it later.”
But I keep wondering—
If rest is always in service of work, are we ever truly resting?
And here’s the bigger question that’s been sitting with me lately:
If rest makes you a better worker, then shouldn’t work make you a better rester?
What would it mean to decouple rest from the grind? To stop treating it like a pit stop on the way to doing more?
Rest Is Not a Transaction
So many of us—especially those in bodies that the fitness world overlooks, pathologizes, or pushes too hard—are learning how to rest. Not just lie down, but actually rest.
To soften. To release. To not hustle even in stillness.
But the messaging is relentless.
“Rest so you can get back to the gym.”
“Rest so your muscles can grow.”
“Rest to prevent burnout... so you can keep working.”
Even rest becomes a productivity hack.
I don’t want that for you. I don’t want that for anyone.
What If Rest Didn’t Have to Be Earned?
What if you didn’t need to earn rest?
What if you didn’t need to prove you were exhausted enough?
What if your body deserved care, simply because it exists?
You are not a machine. You are not a task to be optimized.
You are a person. And people get to rest.
Not because it makes them better.
But because it makes them whole.
Rest as a Radical Act
In a world that measures worth by output, choosing rest is radical.
It is resistance.
It is a reclamation.
When you rest, without needing to justify it, you’re practicing something powerful:
Trust.
Trust that you are enough without doing.
Trust that your value is not in your productivity.
Trust that your body is worthy of gentleness.
So I’ll Leave You With This:
What would rest look like if it didn’t have to prove anything?
Let that question sit in your body.
Let it guide your next nap, your next pause, your next deep breath.
And remember:
Movement is for more.
More care.
More breath.
More trust in your body.
More rest—not as a reward, but as a right.
