Why Do You Still Feel Tired After Resting?

Rest Is Not Stopping. It Is Redirecting.

When we talk about rest, we often imagine stopping everything. No work. No thinking. No movement. Just silence. But I have learned that this idea of rest does not work for everyone, especially for those whose fatigue is mental rather than physical.

When I try to do nothing, my mind does not rest. It gets louder.

This feels especially true for those juggling multiple roles at once, serving, working, caring for others, and still trying to get eight hours of sleep. For many, rest never truly arrives. Even when the body stops, the demands do not.

I began exploring what rest might look like in the middle of ordinary life, not after everything is done. It is tempting to say, “I just want to do nothing for once,” or “I just want to sleep in.” But is that really the kind of rest we are longing for?

Can We Ever Truly Do and Think About Nothing?

Neuroscience suggests that even when we are “doing nothing,” the brain remains active. Research on the default mode network shows that spontaneous thoughts arise without conscious intent. In other words, many thoughts are not deliberately chosen but automatically generated and captured by the mind (Raichle et al., 2001; Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010).

This explains why forced stillness can feel exhausting. The body stops, but the mind continues scanning, planning, and evaluating. For those whose work is cognitively demanding, inactivity alone does not equal rest.

From Daily Breaks to Sabbaticals: Rest That Restores, Not Retreats

Daily breaks are one form of rest, but they are not the only one. Just as focus needs small resets, life sometimes requires longer pauses measured in weeks, months, or even years. These are not escapes from life, but seasons to sharpen the knife.

The risk with longer breaks is real. Some people step away and struggle to return, not because rest is wrong, but because the break lacks intention. Without direction, rest slowly turns into drift.

Scripture points toward sabbatical rhythms rather than permanent withdrawal. Fields were left fallow not to abandon farming, but to restore the soil. Tools are sharpened not to stop working, but to work more effectively.

Modern culture often reduces rest to one or two vacations a year. While travel can be refreshing, it can also become a form of escape, a temporary pause from real life rather than preparation to re enter it. I have found that this kind of rest often feeds distraction more than renewal.

If life is meaningful and purpose driven, rest does not need to be an escape from it. True rest prepares us to return with clarity, depth, and alignment.

Whether daily or seasonal, the issue is not how often we rest, but how we rest. Rest works best when it supports rhythm and purpose, not when it pulls us out of them. Just as the Pomodoro method works only when breaks reset focus rather than interrupt it, meaningful rest restores direction instead of replacing it.

Active Rest and the Power of Redirecting

I have found that active rest is often more restorative than total inactivity.

During a season of physically taxing work in a flower nursery, I listened to the Bible on audio from beginning to end. My body was tired, but my mind was released from constant problem solving, decision making, and self scrutiny. Physical labor became a refuge from mental overload.

This was not escape. It was redirection. Active rest works by shifting the dominant load rather than removing all activity. The body engages while the mind recovers. Or the hands repeat simple tasks while the heart listens.

This aligns with biblical wisdom. Scripture meditation is often paired with walking, working, or daily life, not isolation. Faith was lived in motion as in the passage: “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” - Deuteronomy 6:6–7

Consistency Is Key in Rest

Rest only works when it is consistent. There is a season for everything.

We sleep every night because the body requires predictable restoration. Scripture reflects the same principle. The Sabbath was not occasional. It was recurring. Set apart. Rhythmic (Exodus 20:8–11).

Creation itself operates on structure and rhythm. Day and night (Genesis 1). Seasons and harvest (Ecclesiastes 3:1–2). Daily bread given daily, not stored indefinitely (Exodus 16:4; Matthew 6:11).

In agriculture, dormancy is not failure. It is survival. Studies on perennial trees show that forced continuous growth, achieved through chemical or environmental manipulation, weakens the plant and leads to long term decline or death because essential restorative cycles are bypassed (Pallardy, 2008).

Skipping rest does not increase productivity. It destroys sustainability.

Rest Requires Safety

Rest is not only about time. It is about safety.

Psychology often references Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, where safety and provision form the foundation (Maslow, 1943). Scripture, however, teaches from a different orientation. Seek God first, and provision follows (Matthew 6:33).

Yet emotional safety still matters. The nervous system cannot rest if it does not feel safe.

Chronic stress and burnout are often signs of prolonged fight or flight activation. When the body perceives threat, real or relational, it prioritizes survival over restoration (van der Kolk, 2014). In this state, even sleep does not fully replenish.

Sometimes the reason rest does not work is because the environment is unsafe.

Finding Safety Through Honesty With God

Learning to rest in God required learning to be honest with Him.

I stopped trying to pray correctly. Instead of immediately asking God to help me forgive, I named what was actually present. I admitted dislike. I brought the complaint without editing it. Then I surrendered the situation entirely, trusting God to take charge.

The Psalms model this kind of prayer. Raw, emotional, unfiltered honesty before God. Safety does not come from perfection. It comes from being known. As many of us have experienced, sometimes a listening ear is all we need rather than a solution-focused response.

One lesson from my Diploma in Christian Counselling that continues to shape me is this: a good counsellor is a journey bearer, much like the Holy Spirit, who walks alongside rather than pulls someone forward.

Alignment Over Endurance

This is where alignment becomes more important than endurance.

Endurance says stay, tolerate, push through.

Alignment asks whether this place, relationship, or demand is bearing the fruit of the Spirit, especially peace (Galatians 5:22–23).

Jesus did not endure every situation. He withdrew from crowds (Luke 5:16). He left regions that threatened Him when it was not His time (John 10:39–40). Leaving was not fear based. It was alignment with the Father’s will.

Taking myself out of situations or relationships that consistently produced anxiety, self doubt, or emotional harm became one of the most restorative decisions I made. That choice brought peace, not guilt.

We are called to be peacemakers, not peace keepers (Matthew 5:9). Peacekeeping often requires self abandonment. Peacemaking may require action, distance, and boundaries.

Protecting peace is not selfish. It is biblical.

Safety Through Boundaries and Attunement

Safety also comes from being free from constant self condemnation.

Jesus’ response to the woman caught in adultery was not shame, but mercy (John 8:1–11). He restored dignity before addressing behavior. Grace created safety, and safety made transformation possible.

Psychologist Dr Ramani Durvasula explains that one of the most effective ways to prevent narcissism is parental attunement, being emotionally responsive, present, and validating. Attunement teaches a person that they are seen and safe before they are corrected. If this is essential for human development, then God is the most attuned parent we could ever have.

Learning to rest, then, includes learning to be attuned to ourselves. Exhaustion, resentment, anxiety, and stress are not moral failures, but signals. Ignoring them keeps the nervous system in a heightened state of threat. Listening to them allows regulation, safety, and restoration to begin.

Rest Sometimes Means Leaving

If rest does not come no matter how much sleep or time off is taken, it may not be a productivity issue. It may be a safety issue.

Sometimes the most faithful decision is to leave. As Jesus also respected limits, both His own and others’. Jesus withdrew to pray when crowds pressed in (Luke 5:16). He did not over explain Himself to hostile audiences. He left places that threatened Him when it was not the Father’s will to stay (John 10:39–40). Rest also includes knowing when presence heals and when distance protects.

Leave a role.

Leave a dynamic.

Leave a pattern.

This is not avoidance. It is obedience to peace.

Rest as Redirection and Realignment: How to Return Without Drag

In short, rest is not the absence of movement. It is movement in the right direction.

Redirecting energy, choosing alignment over endurance, and practicing rhythmic, safe, and honest rest are not luxuries. They are necessities for sustainable faith and work.

Rest grounded in rhythm, safety, and truth does not slow life down. It clarifies direction, restores capacity, and makes returning possible without force. Returning without force often begins small. One aligned task. One restored rhythm. One practice carried forward from rest into ordinary life. Not rushing to recover lost ground, but allowing clarity to shape the next step. When re entry is gentle, work no longer feels like resistance, but continuation.

It allows life to continue, not through exhaustion, but with renewed alignment and purpose.

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References

The Holy Bible, New International Version. Genesis 1; Exodus 16:4; Exodus 20:8–11; Psalm 62; Matthew 5:9; Matthew 6:11, 33; Luke 5:16; John 8:1–11; John 10:39–40; Galatians 5:22–23

Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience

Killingsworth, M. A., & Gilbert, D. T. (2010). A wandering mind is an unhappy mind. Science

Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review

Pallardy, S. G. (2008). Physiology of Woody Plants

Raichle, M. E. et al. (2001). A default mode of brain function. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score

Durvasula, R. (2019). Don’t You Know Who I Am? How to Stay Sane in an Era of Narcissism.

Durvasula, R. (2021). Should I Stay or Should I Go? Surviving a Relationship with a Narcissist.

Durvasula, R. (2021). Should I Stay or Should I Go?