For the High Performer

It’s been a long week of deadlines, proposals, drafts, and meetings.

You finally get home on Friday at midnight.

You’re officially done for the week, and your weekend hasn’t been claimed by anyone or anything.

Back at the office, a stack of work quietly awaits you.

A restful weekend was encouraged by your boss, something to celebrate the new business merger and take a break before the real work begins.

So you plan your weekend: a bubble bath, a bottle of wine, Netflix, and a robe.

The goal? To think about absolutely nothing.

Saturday morning comes around. You try to stay in bed past 7 a.m., something you haven’t done in ages.

You stretch. You yawn. You groan.

You turn on the TV.
You turn it off.

Eventually, you decide it might be time for a shower.

After your shower, it’s only 8:30 a.m.

You’re so used to grabbing a bagel and coffee on the way to work that you forget you even have a coffee machine at home.

You walk downstairs and look at the kitchen… then at the coffee machine.

Then your eyes drift.

To your laptop bag.
To the folders bulging out of the front.

Without thinking, you grab it.

You walk to the door, pick up your purse, your keys, and a sweater.

You get in your car.

And you head to the office
for coffee,
and a bagel,
and to get a head start on the “real work.”

Not because you have to.
But because something in you won’t let you stop.

That’s the part we don’t talk about.

Rest isn’t always avoided because we’re busy.
Sometimes it’s avoided because we don’t know how to exist without doing.

And for many high achievers, especially within Black communities, that pattern isn’t random.
It’s learned.
Reinforced.
Internalized over time.

To understand why rest feels so uncomfortable
we have to look beyond routine.

We have to look at culture, conditioning, and the systems that taught us to keep going in the first place.

The Culture and Rest

We don’t just struggle with rest individually
We struggle with it culturally.

And when I say culture, I specifically mean Black culture.

Rest, in many Black communities, has never been neutral.
It has been shaped by survival.

From enslavement to present day, Black people have been conditioned both externally and internally

to equate worth with labor
To work harder.
To push further.
To prove value.

Not because we wanted to,
but because historically, we had to.

That history didn’t disappear
it evolved.

Today, that same pressure shows up as overworking, constant productivity, and the feeling that slowing down means falling behind.
Not just in society, but within ourselves.

This is where capitalism reinforces the cycle.

Externally, capitalism rewards output, productivity, and constant performance.
Internally, many of us adopt those same beliefs and begin to measure our worth by how much we produce.

So rest starts to feel uncomfortable.
Unnatural.
Even wrong.

Because if you’re not working,
you’re not progressing.
And if you’re not progressing,
you’re failing.

But that belief comes at a cost.

Research shows that environments with high demands and low recovery lead to burnout, emotional exhaustion, and decreased performance (Arnold Bakker & Evangelia Demerouti, 2018).

Culturally, when rest is stigmatized, people are less likely to engage in the recovery behaviors that actually support long-term success (Walker et al., 2023).

So what we’re dealing with isn’t just a personal issue
it’s systemic.

Rest has been positioned as something you earn after exhaustion,
instead of something you practice to sustain yourself.

And until that belief shifts both culturally and internally
the cycle continues.

Rest, especially in Black culture, is not just about slowing down.

It’s about unlearning survival patterns that were never meant to be permanent.

Rest is not what we’ve been taught.

It’s not just sleeping.
It’s not laziness,
And it’s not something you earn after you’ve exhausted yourself.

Rest is something you practice daily.

And for Black people, redefining rest is how we begin to break cycles we didn’t create.

Because the truth is, we’ve been conditioned to function in survival mode.
To keep going no matter how we feel.
To push through instead of pause.

So redefining rest isn’t just about relaxing
It’s about learning how to come out of survival mode in real time.

And that starts with what rest actually looks like in your everyday life.

 

Rest Is Not Just Sleep

Many high achievers don’t view rest as a necessary part of being successful.
It’s often reduced to one thing: sleep.
And even sleep is treated as if it were optional
something that gets in the way of success instead of supporting it.

So when rest comes up, it’s often met with phrases like, “Who needs sleep?” or “I’ll sleep when I die.”

We’ve been conditioned to see rest as laziness.

But it’s not.

Based on the work of Saundra Dalton-Smith, there are actually seven types of rest: physical, mental, social, creative, emotional, sensory, and spiritual. Dalton-Smith, S. (2019). The 7 types of rest that every person needs [TEDx Talk]. TEDx.

And only one of those includes sleep.

Rest isn’t just stopping.
It’s not doing nothing.

Rest is a strategic, active process that helps you recover, reset, and perform at a higher level.

What Rest Actually Looks Like (In Real Life)

Rest is not one big moment.
It’s small, intentional decisions throughout your day.

• Physical rest looks like sitting down before your body forces you to
  → putting your phone down and laying flat for 10 minutes
  → stretching your body after carrying stress all day
• Mental rest looks like giving your brain a break from constant thinking
  → stepping away from your phone
  → sitting in silence, even if it’s just in your car before going inside
• Emotional rest looks like not performing for others
  → saying “I don’t have the capacity today” without overexplaining
  → not forcing yourself to be “okay” when you’re not
• Sensory rest looks like reducing overstimulation
  → turning off the TV
  → lowering the lights
  → sitting in quiet space instead of constant noise
• Social rest looks like choosing who you have access to you
  → not answering every call
  → taking space without guilt

Rest is not complicated
but it does require intention.

How We Start Incorporating Rest Daily

You don’t need a full day off.
You need moments.

• Before picking your kids up → sit in the car for 5 minutes in silence
• After work → don’t go straight into responsibilities, pause first
• Before bed → disconnect from stimulation, not just scroll until you fall asleep

Rest is built into transitions.
That’s where most people miss it.

What Happens without Rest

When we don’t rest, we stay in a constant stress response.

And over time, that shows up as:

• irritability
• mental fatigue
• emotional shutdown
• burnout

Research shows that without recovery, our ability to focus, regulate emotions, and performance declines (Albulescu et al., 2022).

So this isn’t just about feeling better, this is about functioning better.

Rest is how we protect our energy, our health, and our ability to keep showing up.

Beating the Odds

For Black people, rest is more than self-care.

It’s resistance.
It’s restoration.
It’s choosing not to carry everything all the same time.

We don’t beat the odds by working ourselves into exhaustion.

We beat the odds by sustaining ourselves long enough to actually enjoy what we’re building.

And that requires rest.

Not later.
Not when everything is done.

But every single day.

Using Therapy as a Tool for Rest

This is where therapy comes in.

Not as someone telling you what you already know
but as accountability.

Therapy is not scolding.
It’s reinforcement.

It’s having someone help you:

• recognize when you’re pushing past your limits
• Where to shift patterns you’ve normalized
• actually follow through on the things you say you need

Because knowing you need rest
and actually allowing yourself to rest
are two different things.

Therapy helps to close that gap.

It gives you space to process, regulate, and reset
which is rest in itself.

Written By: Nardia Gordon 

 

References

Lark, M. A., Michel, J. S., Zhdanova, L., Pui, S. Y., & Baltes, B. B. (2016). All work and no play? A meta-analytic examination of the correlates and outcomes of workaholism. Journal of Management

Saundra Dalton-Smith, S. (2019). The 7 types of rest that every person needs [TEDx Talk]. TEDx.

Arnold B. Bakker, A. B., & Evangelia Demerouti, E. (2017). Job demands resources theory: Taking stock and looking forward. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology