“What science and stories teach us about rest”

 That expensive candle you recently bought sits on the shelf like a promise.

Dust gathering on its lid.

It’s a good one to, its the one you bought at the lovely boutique where the lady behind the counter talked about bergamot and Sicilian lemon as if you were both discussing state secrets.

You told yourself you would light it on a slow afternoon, the kind that smells faintly of rain.

You left the shop with a genuine feeling of hope that ‘calm you’ was sorted…

But that afternoon never came.

Or it did come, but you were busy. Just like everybody else, tending to the many demands of modern life.

The truth is though, that personal rest has a way of slipping through the cracks.

Not because we don’t want to take rest, but because it is quiet, too ‘unproductive’.

And in a life tuned to respond to noise, notifications, deadlines, DIY projects meeting other peoples needs, and the rest… quiet rarely wins.

We tell ourselves these the little things like a candle will be enough.

Three mindful breaths. Stretching before bed. A herbal tea instead of another coffee.They sound so small, so reasonable, that they are almost invisible. And invisibility is exactly why they often do not form into lasting habits.

They get lost among the noise and the demands of everyday life.

So here is the truth.....

Sometimes the best rest is the one we commit to on paper.

The appointment you book weeks ahead.

The dinner or catch up with a friend you would feel guilty cancelling.

The treatment you have already paid for. It is not so much the transaction that matters, but the signal it sends.

This hour belongs to me.

Cultures across time have understood this instinctively.

In ancient Greece, temples of Asclepius were designed not only for healing but for intentional rest and days of quiet, of ritual, and dream incubation.

In Japan, the practice of shinrin-yoku, or forest bathing, was introduced as recently as the 1980s to combat burnout in a hyper-industrialized society. The thread is the same: structured, intentional pauses hold more weight than the promise of ‘when I find the time.’

Science also has plenty to say about what happens in that scheduled time.

A study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that short, intentional blocks of time lower cortisol levels, reducing the load on our nervous systems.

Other research shows that practices such as yoga (especially Restorative and Yin yoga) breathwork, Yoga nidra, massage, and sound therapy and alike can improve heart rate variability which is a key measure of how well your body shifts between stress and recovery states.

This is not just about luxury self care treatments, there is psychology behind it. A single treatment, while pleasant, is unlikely to undo years of chronic stress or old trauma patterns. Having said that, as a professional gong practitioner, I have built up a large bank of anecdotal evidence of people experiencing profound emotional shifts from just one session. These moments are real, and I have witnessed them many times. But the broader truth for lasting well being, health,and nervous system regulation is that our bodies respond best to consistency.

Like brushing your teeth, one good scrub won’t prevent decay, it is the regularity that changes the long-term picture.

In my own life, I still remember starting to book treatments in my twenties, money so tight each time I often almost cancelled.

I don’t remember the exact details of the sessions themselves, but I remember the way I walked home afterwards, proud in the knowledge that I had chosen to look after myself like that.

That feeling, more than the treatment, stayed with me.

And then there is the private data, the kind your smart watch cannot always catch.

The way your stomach tightens when stress moves in.

The faint rash on your collarbone. The circles under your eyes that tell you more than any wellness tracker ever could.

For one person, stress shows up as digestive changes. For another, it is a flare in their skin or jaw tension they only notice when it becomes a horrible headache.

It is about working with our own bodies, noticing our own signs, and responding by giving the nervous system what it desperately wants: deep, regular recovery. And the science is clear, chronic stress has been shown to accelerate biological ageing by shortening telomeres, the protective caps on our DNA.

Regular recovery practices can help slow that process, literally giving us more time.

More ‘good’ time

When you start paying attention to those signs, you begin to see patterns. The digestive discomfort that appears after three late nights. The headaches that shadow you when lunch is an afterthought. The way you breathe more shallowly in weeks when the calendar is packed. It is tempting to push through, to tell yourself it is “just a busy patch,” but your body is not filing this under temporary,  it simply quietly tally’s up the cost.

One of the world’s most recognized voices on vulnerability and resilience, Brené Brown, has written extensively about how our culture glorifies exhaustion while dismissing rest.

She admits that her own turning point came when she realized that white-knuckling her way through endless commitments was not courage but avoidance.

And not forgetting the gorgeous Joanna Lumley, who has spoken about the absolute necessity of slowing down in order to keep joy alive, her reminder that vitality comes not from constant motion but from knowing when to pause.

But what about the shaming? That quiet, corrosive thought that you should be doing more self care, that you are somehow failing because you are tired. As if rest is a competitive sport and you have not trained enough. This guilt cycle is one reason rest becomes toxic — we start to feel bad about not doing enough of it, and in that tension, the rest we do take becomes compromised. We mentally check off the massage, the yoga class, the evening walk, but in truth we were busy in our heads the whole time, rehearsing emails and shopping lists.

Of course I will always advocate for scheduled rest, the kind where you’ve carved out time for an appointment, a treatment, or a practice where someone else is holding the space for you. But I also know that life doesn’t always allow for that. And if, in a given week, your only pause is the thirty minutes between parking the car and picking up the kids, let it count. Sit with it. Notice your shoulders. Loosen your jaw. Pay attention to whether your breath is in your chest or your belly. This is not about doing rest perfectly; it’s about taking rest seriously enough to make it personal.

So maybe today is the day to put something in your calendar.

Text a friend and finally schedule that coffee you have both been talking about. Plan a walk in nature, preferably somewhere with trees. Book the massage. Book the Reiki appointment.

Book the yoga class. Whatever shape it takes, get it in the diary. Because once it is there, that little corner of your calendar is more than just time blocked out. It is your promise to yourself, a declaration that this restorative time matters. That you matter.