Are You Anxious or Were You Just Never Allowed to Rest?

Some people have social anxiety, generalized anxiety, health anxiety, you name it, but also sometimes that anxiety comes from the feeling of not being allowed to rest. This happens when your nervous system identifies that rest is unsafe, stillness is too loud, slowing down means being out of control, your needs are an inconvenience, and being productive means feeling protected. So when there is an opportunity to rest, your body does not feel at peace. 

What This Actually Looks Like:

Instead of being anxious for an upcoming event or because there’s been recent conflict in a relationship, the anxiety feels ominous, vague, and foreboding. This can look like:

• Cleaning when you feel overwhelmed (instead of sitting in the overwhelm)

• Feeling more anxious when you don’t have things to do instead of feeling as anxious or at all when your schedule is full

• Having multiple stimulation at once because it quiets the noise in your head (watching tv and being on your phone, taking a walk and texting, listening to a podcast and journaling)

• Feeling guilty if you’re not feeling useful enough or are around someone who is actively doing something and you might not be

• Frequently thinking “I don’t know how to relax”

All this means that your body and nervous system equates inactivity, slowness, and/or resting as danger. 

Where This Comes From

Not to say that this is an exhaustive list, but the most common origins of this are:

• Emotional Neglect (Caregivers being preoccupied with their own stuff whether it be depression, overwhelm, or dysregulation. It led to unpredictability so you had to stay alert in order to be one step ahead to protect yourself from vulnerabilities, which meant never being able to relax or learning how to relax.)

• Parentification (Ex. Growing up in a single parent household, growing up as an eldest sibling, growing up with complex situations where your caregiver needed help as if you were the 2nd parent, which led to becoming useful in order to stay connected with your parent)

• Generational Messaging (Ex. “Rest later”, “Don’t waste the opportunity”, “You can sleep when you’re dead”, “We didn’t make sacrifices just for you to be comfortable”)

• Conditional Love (Affirmation, validation, connection, affection and love came after you accomplished something and was withheld or dimmed all the other times)

• Chaos (If the house felt unsafe but predictable, stillness meant something is wrong)

The Cycle Continues

Since productivity feels so safe, it can become the default setting, which can look like never-ending internal conflict, self-doubt, and consistent feelings of anxiety. The cycle can look like this:

1. Feel internal tension, icky feelings

2. Do something productive to accomplish something and distract from internal tension

3. Find temporary relief

4. Reinforces the identity of “I’m valuable because I do” (human doing instead of human being

5. Feel burnt out because you’ve exceeded your capacity to do

6. Feel shame because you feel like something is wrong with you (there isn’t anything wrong with you, it’s a learned process than can be unlearned and healed)

7. Do it all over again

Why Rest Feels So Threatening

Rest is like shining a big ol’ light on everything that you’ve been avoiding and putting in the dark corner of your mind. Rest removes distraction, the semblance of control, the act of performance, and the all-powerful external validation plus don’t forget instant gratification and relief. When rest is present and actively being taken, some monsters might come out of the closet such as unprocessed grief, loneliness, existential fear, uncomfortable body sensations, the feeling of being exposed and vulnerable. 

Practical Action Steps to End the Cycle

Don’t even think about shaming yourself because shame will just put you back into the cycle. Instead of shame, try validating yourself with compassion like “your body learned that usefulness keeps you safe and it makes all the sense in the world why stillness feels activating”. Healing isn’t about dropping all of your high-performance traits, but coexisting in the space of both things can exist like achieving and feeling safe without having to earn it. Here are some small steps to start practicing:

• Set a timer to observe how you react and identify what you feel (both emotionally and bodily) with intentional stillness. Try starting with 3 minutes and going lower if 3 minutes feels like you’re drowning. The goal is not to drown, but to be a bit uncomfortable. 

• Rest with less stimulation than you normally would, but still with some stimulation. Sitting on the couch with an audiobook and that’s it. Laying down with a weighted blanket and white noise.

• Schedule “unproductive” time on your calendar and label it whatever you want such as “recovery training” or “me time”. Words matter so find what resonates with you.

• Notice what your body does in the first 90 seconds of slowing down(catalog thoughts, images that pop up, feelings that occur, where sensations happen)

The intention is to start slow at the edges of what feels tolerable and uncomfortable in order to increase your window of tolerance to relax. Don’t go and have a full rest day because that’ll just lead you going back into the cycle like a turtle without its shell, it’s too exposing all at once. If you want guided help in a therapeutic space, I’m happy to do that with you.

• Sam Villarreal, MS, LPC, LCDC