Post #4: Rest Allows Space for Healing & Preventing Stress-Related Neuroplastic Symptoms
5-minute read
I have a guilty secret: Since I was young, I’ve needed nine hours of sleep per night. I’ve been known to leave a room without notice to nap or sleep. Of course, there have been many times in life that this has not been possible. Numerous times as a medical trainee, I worked up to 30 hours in a row with no option for sleep, but I don’t consider it a badge of honor. So, why do I feel such guilt about striving for nine hours of sleep when I can? Because our culture praises the opposite: “Grind culture,” as Tricia Hersey, founder of the Nap Ministry and author of Rest is Resistance, calls it. Society ranks capitalistic motives over individual needs; values money more than time; promotes survival over thriving. Self-worth gets wrapped up in productivity. The fear that we won’t seem good enough deprioritizes personal needs and desires.
Yet sleep is not the only form of rest. Daytime rest should be sought out as well, through meditation, slowing down, mindfulness, and flow experiences. Even creating separation and asserting boundaries are forms of rest. Rest is a need, not an indulgence. Hersey says, “Rest is a healing portal to our deepest selves.” It allows space for healing and preventing stress-illness, also known as neuroplastic symptoms, through observation, contemplation, and connecting with intuition.
External cues signal the time to rest, but so often they go ignored. Such signals include darkness after sunset, winter cold, summer heat, and unstable weather. When your body needs rest, do you give into it? Or do you push through it? When rest is lacking, neuroplastic symptoms result from over activation of the fight or flight response of the sympathetic nervous system. Chronic fatigue or depression is the body’s way of putting the brakes on. Pain slows us down. Symptoms force us to say no to obligations we don’t believe in. Rest allows space to listen to the body’s cues.
“Your body was knocking to let you know that something was bothering you. But you didn’t understand it. So, it knocked louder and louder, by creating more pain or new symptoms. When you didn’t listen, it rang the doorbell, and finally it threw a rock through a window to get your attention.”
Meditation
“This will be a very busy day. I won’t be able to meditate for an hour. I’ll have to meditate for two.”
Rather than give up his daily meditation for lack of time, Gandhi knew that the more stress on the nervous system, the more meditation needed to counteract it. Even 20 minutes once to twice a day can be beneficial.
In Meditation: The First and Last Freedom, the Indian spiritual guru, Osho, tells of three essentials to any meditation: relaxation without concentration; observation of the body, thoughts, and emotions; and non-judgment. Harry Meserve, a Unitarian Universalist minister, agrees in The Practical Meditator, that meditation is not goal-oriented and advises to take the experience as it comes. Closing your eyes allows decreased input of sensations from the environment to get in touch with your inner self. Stories abound of emotional lability and release of intense bodily sensations at 10-day Vipassana (meaning “to see things as they really are”) Meditation sessions, in which the meditator sits in silence for hours at a time. The unraveling of years or decades of unconscious thoughts and stored memories may release bodily symptoms.
Self-realization results when activity and thinking ceases, leaving only existence. In Everyday Zen, American Buddhist teacher Charlotte Joko Beck states that enlightenment is not something you achieve; rather, enlightenment is stripping yourself from ego, identity, and status. Meditation provides awareness of your true self and intuition. It allows peace in the center of a storm. Those tough decisions may seem clearer.
Slowing down
In The Art of Stillness, English-born essayist Pico Iyer states “Happiness is going ‘nowhere’” and encourages simplifying life. He suggests a regular secular Sabbath, at least to turn off digital devices. Restrictions from the Covid pandemic allowed a form of sabbatical for which many people reexamined their lives. As part of the Great Resignation, they quit unrewarding jobs, left toxic relationships, or spent more time with loved ones. Even since the Covid pandemic ended, it’s more respected to take time away from obligations to prevent spreading illness to others.
Jews who observe Sabbath (or Shabbat), take a full 24 hours from sunset Fridays to sunset Saturdays, to slow down and appreciate life. Free from work agendas and technology (such as lights, phones, or vehicles), Shabbat is a reminder that the world goes on without human guidance. My good friends, Rebecca and Shane, visited my husband and I several years ago for a few days. As a Jew, Rebecca grew up observing Shabbat. Shane, who grew up Protestant, took on many of Rebecca’s traditions after they married. Rather than find their customs constraining, my husband and I enjoyed relaxed celebration with them. We prepared dinner prior to seeing the first star in the sky that Friday evening, so that we could relish in the feast once Shabbat commenced. On Saturday, we enjoyed outdoor recreation within walking distance of home. Imagine all the potential frustrations prevented during those 24 hours: slow restaurant service, a frustrating retail bill, car trouble, vexing work emails, and so on. Upon the sight of the first star on Saturday evening, normal activities resumed, which made going out on the town more special.
Creating separation
Even setting boundaries and saying “no” is a form of rest. You might need a separation from triggering circumstances. My aha moment of awakening that began my healing from neuroplastic symptoms came after I separated myself from the major life stressor that was causing my symptoms, my job as a traditional family doctor. Additionally, life circumstances separated me from my husband for several months when I left California for Little Rock to help my parents with a health crisis. Looking back on it, this separation was necessary for me to heal. My husband, as supportive as he could be, gave me someone to complain to and blame for my own frustrations. Once I was on my own, I confronted my life stressors, childhood experiences, and core issues that primed me for neuroplastic symptoms as an adult, and I built back my life with newfound empowerment. I have since renewed my marriage and practice of medicine.
Mindfulness and flow activities
Mindfulness and flow activities allow moment-to-moment nervous system rest. See my second blog post, “Mind-Body Healing Through Neuroplasticity” to learn more.
You deserve rest, so give in. The benefits are cumulative when practiced regularly. You just may let it all go and awaken with newfound authenticity and intuition.
Your soundtrack to inspire rest: Let it Go from the Disney movie “Frozen”
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The snow glows white on the mountain tonight
Not a footprint to be seen
A kingdom of isolation
And it looks like I'm the queenThe wind is howling like this swirling storm inside
Couldn't keep it in, heaven knows I tried
Don't let them in, don't let them see
Be the good girl you always have to be
Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know
Well, now they knowLet it go, let it go
Can't hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door
I don't care what they're going to say
Let the storm rage on
The cold never bothered me anywayIt's funny how some distance makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me can't get to me at all
It's time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me
I'm freeLet it go, let it go
I am one with the wind and sky
Let it go, let it go
You'll never see me cry
Here I stand and here I stay
Let the storm rage onMy power flurries through the air into the ground
My soul is spiraling in frozen fractals all around
And one thought crystallizes like an icy blast
I'm never going back, the past is in the pastLet it go, let it go
And I'll rise like the break of dawn
Let it go, let it go
That perfect girl is gone
Here I stand in the light of day
Let the storm rage on
The cold never bothered me anyway
Rachel Hollander relaxing in a hammock on the Fourth of July, 2025.
