Why Rest Feels Wrong | Lab Notes

Jamey Maniscalco (00:01.614)
So today I want to admit something. I don't rest well. And I'm not looking to humble brag here. I actually think it's a problem. And it honestly feels a little uncomfortable to admit because I've spent years studying neuroscience. I understand stress and recovery, the importance of sleep and how things can lead to burnout, understanding how important performance is and resting leading to better performance, as well as things like facilitating long-term mental health.

I understand intellectually how important rest and recovery is. And yet, if I spend a weekend not really doing much, if I spend an evening sitting around reading or relaxing, watching a movie with my family, doing nothing, right? There's a voice in the back of my head that's saying, you're wasting time. You are falling behind. You could be doing more. You're losing opportunities. And honestly, it sucks.

These are moments we live for, right? Moments with our family, moments with ourselves. And I'm so often not truly enjoying them. And this remains one of the most deeply ingrained mindsets I still actively struggle with, recover with, that I still actively struggle with. Other mindsets I've been able to shift over time, but guilt-free rest is still very much a work in progress for me. But before we jump in,

If you find this content helpful, please, please, please like, subscribe, hit the alert button. This is a no-cost way to support me and to support the channel. Thanks so much. So maybe some of you feel the same thing, because for so many of us, guilt around rest and recovery, it's not just personal, it's a result of social conditioning. Many of us grew up watching people we admire constantly work.

whether it's parents or teachers, a mentor or a boss, we as a society tend to celebrate busyness. We celebrate exhaustion. We celebrate grinding and hustle culture. We repeat phrases like, I'll sleep when I'm dead, or you just got to hustle harder or rise and grind. And success is portrayed in the media almost exclusively as this constant output, as

Jamey Maniscalco (02:25.514)
always doing, always building, always optimizing, always moving, never tired. And for most of my life, I bought into that really deeply. And honestly, I still kind of do. And it was never more so, I never bought in more so, I should say, than during college and graduate school. I wore overwork like a badge of honor during the tail end of my college experience and during the entirety of graduate school.

I focused on intentionally getting minimal sleep so I could work longer hours, be constantly productive, always striving for more. And at the time it felt admirable. It felt like I was disciplined, successful. But when I look back, I wasn't thriving. I learned, I achieved, I progressed, but I wasn't enjoying my time. I wasn't truly embracing my profession in the moment. And I was...

really not living a sustainable lifestyle. I was not going to be able to sustain that for the rest of my adult life without burning out quickly and hard. And more and more so, our modern world rewards doing far more than it rewards being. And our brains and our nervous systems have evolved to really need something different. Our ancestors, humans in general, evolved in environments that included natural cycles. We would have effort

followed by periods of recovery, periods of movement that would then be followed by periods of stillness. We'd have stimulation that was followed by quiet. And this isn't because our ancestors understood neuroscience better than we do, but because that was life, that was their environment. That's how the world worked. And importantly, those quieter environments, they mattered. Recovery supports effective learning. It helps with memory consolidation.

It supports creativity and emotional regulation. It's a time for problem solving and information integration. How many times have you struggled with something only to suddenly find clarity during a walk or while you're in the shower or sitting outside or while you're on vacation the last time you should be thinking about work or a project? These quiet moments without stimulation create room for processing.

Jamey Maniscalco (04:47.192)
But most of us live in environments now that never stop asking things from us. We have messages and notifications, information, work, input, entertainment, stimulation. All of this is always available and often always being pushed at us. And I honestly think that part of why rest feels so uncomfortable is not only because we've been socially conditioned to see productivity as success, beneficial, and something to venerate, but because

In seeing that and in acting accordingly, we've started to train ourselves to associate slowing down with falling behind. But recovery isn't falling behind. We know that recovery supports performance, not only intellectually and mentally, but physically. It supports our health, it supports our learning, and it supports sustainable success. Because yes, you can sprint for a period of time, but if you want to have success over decades, over the course of a career,

You need to be able to recover so you don't burn out, flame out, whatever you want to call it. And importantly, rest doesn't have to mean sitting perfectly still or being a couch potato. Recovery can look like taking a walk, getting out into nature, reading a book for fun. Remember that? Talking with family, playing outside. It's time to find quiet and space. It's giving yourself moments where your brain doesn't constantly need to perform.

And honestly, very honestly, I'm still working on this like actively right now. Because despite understanding the psychology, the neuroscience, the evolution behind this, there is still a major part of me that feels guilty slowing down, that feels like productivity equals self-worth.

Jamey Maniscalco (06:45.71)
All right, I'm gonna go back to, and honestly.

Jamey Maniscalco (07:06.114)
And honestly, I'm still working on this actively, like right now. Because despite understanding the neuroscience, there's still a major part of me that feels guilty slowing down, that feels like productivity equals worth. But I am making progress, I really am, because I'm working on getting better at noticing my feelings of guilt, of worthlessness, when I'm resting, when I'm recovering, when I'm trying to intentionally have some quiet time.

And that type of noticing is really where the change does start. I'm really working to not judge that, to not fight it, but just to notice it. And to ask myself questions like, what thoughts are showing up when I'm resting? What beliefs am I carrying about rest and recovery? Who taught me those beliefs or what taught me those beliefs? And is this still serving me? Do these beliefs serve me well? Because I think thriving in modern life,

isn't as much about learning how to do more as it is about learning how to recover better and learning how to create space in our lives again to bring us back to our ancestral roots. I think it's something that we need to be doing more and more intentionally, but it's hard because we often, many of us don't have the skills to understand how to do that. So what I urge you to do is try to find places where you can create that space, those moments for rest and recovery.

But also as you are doing that, and especially if it's difficult, reflect on why. Spend a moment thinking about how you feel and why you feel that way. And once you can notice this, you can start to recognize whether those patterns of thoughts feel beneficial or not, feel logical or not. And the more we can dig in, the more we're able to take action to change how we're living our lives according to those thoughts and beliefs. So I hope this was helpful.

And I look forward to seeing you next time on Next Door Neuro.