When Stillness Feels Unsafe: Why Rest Makes Us Anxious

If you’ve ever tried to take a day off — really off — and felt your brain quietly screaming that you should be doing something productive… congratulations, you’re normal.

For a lot of us, rest doesn’t feel peaceful. It feels wrong. It feels like we’re falling behind, like some imaginary group of “other people” is out there getting ahead while we sit here doing “nothing.”

But here’s the truth: it’s not laziness. It’s conditioning.

We’ve been trained to believe that achievement equals safety. That our worth is measured in motion. That we’re only as good as our last productive day.

So when we finally slow down, our nervous system panics — because it’s been taught that stillness equals danger.

That wiring doesn’t disappear just because we light a candle and pour cocoa.

The Holidays Expose the Cracks

The holiday season forces us into that tension. We want to connect, rest, and be present… but our nervous system is still wired for output.

We sit down with our families, and our minds instantly start multitasking: gifts to wrap, emails to send, projects waiting on the other side of the break. Our bodies are in the room, but our brains are off running 47 open tabs.

And then we feel guilty — for not resting enough, for wanting rest, for not enjoying it when we get it.

No wonder this season feels exhausting.

This Isn’t a Self-Control Problem

You can’t willpower your way into rest. You have to retrain your nervous system to feel safe when it’s not producing.

That means noticing the discomfort instead of shaming it.
When your brain tells you you’re falling behind, pause and name it:

“This is just my old wiring trying to keep me safe.”

Because that’s really what it is — an outdated survival mechanism. The part of you that learned: If I keep moving, I’ll stay valuable. If I stay valuable, I’ll stay safe.

You’re not lazy. You’re learning to live in a new rhythm.

Rest Is Not Falling Behind — It’s Regulation

The science backs it up: a regulated nervous system performs better than an exhausted one. Rested people are more creative, more focused, and more emotionally steady.

Rest doesn’t make you less ambitious. It makes you effective.
It’s not proof you’ve stopped caring.
It’s proof you trust yourself enough to pause.

This Holiday, Try This Instead

Don’t aim to “rest more.”
Aim to feel safe while resting.

When that old itch to get up hits, take a breath and stay seated a little longer. Let your body learn:

“ I still have worth, even when I'm not working. I’m still safe, even when I’m still.”

Because that’s where real rest begins — not when the to-do list is empty, but when your nervous system believes you’re allowed to stop.

If this resonates, you’ll love my Beyond Burnout newsletter — full of gentle, grounded tools to help you rewrite your relationship with work, rest, and worth.