What is rest in a burnt-out world? Psychodynamic thoughts

I am drawn to the subject of rest for two reasons. The first was an excellent presentation by Akshi Singh, Rest as a Threat, which I watched as part of my own CPD through the BACP. The second is that today I have a day to myself, and the very thought of resting – of not hammering through a to-do list: cleaning the house, deciding what's for dinner, life admin, emptying that drawer that won't close - filled me with guilt.

The prospect of doing 'nothing' felt almost impossible. Even as these thoughts were consciously in my head, I reached for my phone and started scrolling.

And here I am now, writing about it.

So when did rest become so firmly attached to output and activity? Are we a culture of exhausted over-achievers? I call it my babbling brain. My conscious functioning is constantly in motion, constantly making noise. I sometimes wonder whether our understanding of rest has become captured by the same logic that exhausts us in the first place.

Through therapy, I have learnt to recognise some of my patterns, and now rest – or perhaps the pursuit of rest – is in my line of vision.

Ultimately, rest has become a tool to work better, achieve more, and keep going.

There is truth in this, of course. Bodies need sleep. Minds need recovery. However, what if rest is no longer useful? There lies our modern-day paradox: rest only becomes valuable if we can accept its refusal to be useful.

When did we become our own internal line managers?

Many people arrive in therapy carrying a sense of fatigue that cannot be explained by workload alone. They may have achieved much of what they set out to achieve. They may be functioning well. Yet something feels off. There is often a sense of having become disconnected from themselves, as though life has become organised around obligations, expectations and performance. We begin to line-manage and evaluate our own lives. The voice that once came from outside now speaks from within.

Against this backdrop, rest introduces something that many of us find uncomfortable: an absence of purpose.

Singh's presentation introduced her audience to the work of Marion Milner, and it is interesting to wonder about the attraction of Milner's writing from the 1930s to the modern mind. Milner asked herself a deceptively simple question: how did she actually want to spend her free time? Through thoughtful observation, she discovered that attention often moved in unexpected directions. Small pleasures, passing curiosities and fleeting desires revealed something important about the self.

On Rest: A space for not knowing

Perhaps, psychologically, rest can be better understood as a letting go of our usual routines and pressures. Can we encounter the world without immediately trying to use it, change it or extract something from it?

This is perhaps why genuine rest can feel unfamiliar. It asks us to tolerate not knowing what will happen next. It asks us to spend time without a clear outcome. This can be a creative experience. It can also be an anxious one.

Can we risk allowing our minds to wander somewhere unexpected? An idea appears uninvited. Something forgotten returns to mind. The clouds move if I sit still long enough.

Allowing free thought means our minds can evade censorship for a while. We ask our internal line manager to step back. Slowly, with space, we can create the conditions in which we encounter ourselves differently.

This is not an argument for doing less. Nor is it a romanticisation of leisure in a world where many people have too little time, too much responsibility or too much uncertainty.

Instead, it is an invitation to become curious.

Be curious about what happens when there is no immediate task.

Be curious about what thoughts emerge in the space you have created.

Be curious about what rest might be if it were not required to justify itself.

Be curious about your rest from constant connectivity

Sitting with the not knowing may help us become a little more interested in, and compassionate towards, who we are. Maybe this is our version of rest in a manic world.

I am about to purchase Akshi Singh's book, In Defence of Leisure: Experiments in Living with Marion Milner (Jonathan Cape, 2025). I intend to read it on holiday, and the irony of that is not lost on me.

I am a UK-based psychodynamic counsellor working in Tunbridge Wells and online. You are welcome to get in touch.