Is This Really Burnout?

Alright, I have to say this. Most of us don’t actually rest anymore. And to many of us, it seems like we cannot even afford to rest anymore. Coz there’s always something to take care of. There’s always something that needs our attention. There’s always something we have to deal with. Either internally, or with others. And we have our days cut out for this.

We have our Work Days.

The days where we juggle meetings, deadlines, emails, and that one coworker who is always asking for a “quick call”. Our brains are in full output mode, churning and grinding and whirring like an overheated laptop.

Then we have our Healing Days.

The Self Improvement/Therapy Appointment Days. You know the ones? Journal prompts that sound like therapy homework, therapy homework that is therapy homework, and trying to intentionally apply all those techniques we learn in therapy to deal with uninvited emotional flashbacks. Very character-developing. But also very draining. Inner work is important, but it still requires energy, right?

And then we have THE days.

The Pseudo-Rest Days. The so-called do-nothing days with beautifully numb hours spent binge-watching shows that we don’t even like anymore, scrolling into oblivion, or becoming one with the mattress (or couch) in a horizontal existential crisis. Technically, we’re “off”. But actually, our nervous system is still riding a stress rollercoaster wearing clown makeup. It’s still “on”. Not resting, but bracing. Hustling. Unable to catch a break.

So when people say, “I don’t know why I’m so tired,” it’s probably because they’re just not resting even though they think they are. They’re caught in a loop. Constantly rotating between output, introspection and dissociation.

As a ceiling-staring enthusiast myself, I gotta say this. We all need a fourth kind of day every now and then. The Absolutely No Work Is Happening Day. No breakthroughs, no to-do lists, no deep emotional insights (unless all of these are just happy byproducts). Just sun on our face, sipping on iced tea with friends, and laughing. Seeing. Listening. Feeling. Smiling.

While I’d LOVE to prescribe such days to everyone every week, this is not an ideal world. Most of us do not have the luxury of a full day to switch off regularly. This is a world where most of us are hustling, working multiple jobs or projects, adopting the caregiver role in shifts, finding moments to love one another (and ourselves) between shifts. Many of us are just trying to survive the month without collapsing. So float the idea of a “day off” under these circumstances, and it almost feels laughable. Guilt-inducing. Insensitive.

That’s why we need to learn what rest means, and what rest can look like.

While Airbnb getaways are fine, rest can look like five minutes of silence before checking your phone. Or eating lunch without multitasking. Or slowly watering your plants. Or spending a minute longer at the window because the clouds look so pretty today.

Rest doesn’t necessarily mean absence of activity. Rest actually means presence without pressure. A moment where you’re not fixing, you’re not performing, you’re not proving anything. You’re just being.

So, even if the next day off isn’t in the near future, we could try to steal little moments of rest and sprinkle them into our week. Tiny pockets of stillness that remind our nervous system that we’re not a machine. That we’re not running on super-active mode all the effing time. That we can take breaks. That we can be off-duty and relax.

Because when you cannot escape the chaos, it’s nice to have the option to come home to yourself. A home where you can just be. Without any pressure.