One of the dangers of working in a library is that, from time to time, I get tempted to read things - books, journal articles, reports, things that I find for students but secretly also want to read for myself and on the rarest of occasions, I actually make the time to read them while the world turns into its yawning bed, and then I get to learn something new. I stumbled across a book in our relaxation corner recently about the subtle art of resting, as opposed to racing to keep still whenever we are not sleeping.1 It turns out rest is rather important for staying happy and well. Except I'm not sure the author (a psychology professor) was actually talking about rest. Rest for me is the opposite of business, and as this psychologist was puzzled to discover, being on the go and doing things isn't necessarily a bad thing - what matters more is whether we feel we have control over our lives and how we experience everything we are doing.
So what seems to work?
Intense effort is rewarded with a payoff of deep relaxation when it ends - whether it be understanding something complex or sprinting on a treadmill in the gym, while idling and letting the mind wander during low-intensity activity, whether watching TV, reading for pleasure, or simply bumbling about at home doing nothing in particular frees the mind to recover and fosters creativity. Choosing to be alone, to do very little, or to engage intensively with something that requires intense intellectual and/or physical exertion can both be restful. Waiting for a bus that doesn't arrive can be meditative and serene or ruin your day and induce dread anxiety about the reliability of public transport and whether you will ever arrive anywhere on time again.
The art of finding ease and recovering from stress seems not to be to do nothing, but to find the right mix of activities that release tension from your body and give your mind something it enjoys to do without worrying about whether what you enjoy is something society tells you that you should enjoy. Watching television, watching the world go by or wandering in nature and noticing the little details, pottering in the garden or scrubbing the bath clean and then (optionally) climbing in it for a good long soak are all as worthy as intensive meditation and exercise, and the same people may benefit from both.
The art of finding 'rest' seems to be learning to notice what feels good at any particular time and doing that, and finding ways to relax and rest, doing all those mundane things that might otherwise be sources of stress. Noticing the reactions in the body as you wait for a bus that hasn't turned up on time, enjoying standing in the sun or refreshing rain as you wait rather than worrying that you planned to be productive somewhere else right now transforms an experience of life that is out of control into one that celebrates the here and now experience of unpredictability, impermanence, and the whole of life rather than manufacturing distress when life does not go to plan.
Random acts of relaxation you might like to try
None of this is advice - indeed, one person's rest is often another's stressful boredom, but drawing on this little opus on easeful rest, the following seem to be generally true:
Inattention to detail is relaxing
Whether reading, watching TV, or simply letting the mind wander as you potter about doing rather little, the mind gets to recover, regroup, and get creative. Doing nothing much can be as restful as it gets.
Effort is rewarded
Whether creatively engaging in a good book where you have to meet the author halfway in realising the scene you are imagining or exercising in the gym, effort seems to result in deeper relaxation when that effort ends than can be achieved simply by doing nothing. Doing nothing can be very challenging (ask anyone who sits completely still to meditate), so finding a way to do little and pay gentle attention to doing that little can be much easier and very restorative.
Welcome regular distractions and daydreaming
Staring out at the greenery or seagulls nesting on the roof for just 40 seconds can reset your concentration for many minutes, while jumping up and going for a five minute constitutional once an hour has been shown to energise people far beyond longer, less frequent breaks. Little and often seems to be the key to preventing the body tensing up.
Watch the birdie!
Watching nature attentively can be a salient reminder of how everything changes, nothing lasts, nothing lives forever, and that we and our problems are insignificant in the grand cosmic scheme of things. We often get caught up trying to keep the good things going forever and keep all the bad things from ever arriving at our door, whatever good and bad things look like for you, that we lose sight of the bigger picture. Sometimes, just imagining standing outside yourself and zooming out until first you, and then the entire world, galaxy, and known universe, shrink to a tiny dot in the grand scheme of perception can help put today's tribulations in perspective. Philosophers throughout the ages have observed that we suffer because we fear the inevitable, cling to things that are going away, and insist on getting what we want, thereby upsetting ourselves when what is happening isn't what we planned or hoped for. From Epictetus2 and Albert Ellis3 to Gautama Buddha4, many philosophers and psychologists have agreed that our reactions to life events contribute a lot of avoidable suffering to the general unsatisfactoriness of life. In other words, we would be happier just getting on with life rather than dreaming of a future that may never come and wishing life were different right now.
It pays to pay attention to your inner world
Whether your body and mind crave effort or relative stillness will vary over time, and giving your body what it craves most, whether that is a soak in a warm bath or a rigorous swim powering lengths in the pool, will get you the best reward. Simply noticing what is happening around you and how you react to it can make you feel better and empower you to change how you respond.
Finding stillness in motion
Taking the idea of noticing what's arising in the moment to its extreme leads to yoga and meditation, where focused attention really helps train the mind to pay attention to what is arising and let go of its stories, which may or may not be true. Such practices take, well, practice to pay off, but even a more relaxed moment-by-moment noticing can make everyday activities restful. Research suggests rest is what you make of it - and that anything from a torturous 10k run to playing an instrument to vegetating for an hour or two with friends in front of whatever trash TV is on can all be restful.
Allow yourself to rest
Western society seems to confuse being busy with being important. If you are continually in demand, you must be valuable. Contrast this to Southern Italy, where the busy man is pitied for being so poor he must continually labour to make ends meet. The value of business is relative and cultural, and therefore an illusion. As with everything in life, it is ultimately up to you to protect, care for, serve and please yourself. Key to this is to accept that rest is not a luxury but a necessary part of your wellbeing routine. It doesn't require permission from anyone else - it just needs you to admit (silently, when no-one is watching) that you matter to yourself.
Look for rest where you least expect it
Rest more in all its varied forms - including deciding that walking to the bus stop and waiting while it turns up late is restful - and you will fill your days with more rest than you imagined possible and you will likely find yourself healthier, more creative, more resilient, and ultimately more productive in the long run for letting your body-mind recover.Rest doesn't have to be glamorous, or be an activity that features on the cover of lifestyle magazines. It doesn't even have to make you fitter, cleaner, or more sociable. Sometimes rest means physically stopping altogether and collapsing in front of the TV, sometimes it means hard physical work - walking, running or thrashing about in a Zumba class; sometimes it means connecting with others, and sometimes withdrawing for some alone time.
Listen to and love yourself
Only you know what you need at any given time, so listen to yourself, stop trying relentlessly to "fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds worth of distance run"5 and take a little more time each day to "let the soft animal of the body love what it loves".6
Footnotes
1 Claudia Hammond, The Art of Rest (Canongate 2019). - Available for you to borrow from the Library's Quick Choice collection in the relaxation corner beside the café.
2 William O Stephens, Stoic Ethics: Epictetus and Happiness as Freedom (Continuum 2007), 56.
3 e.g. Albert Ellis, Stress Counselling: A Rational Emotive Behaviour Approach (Continuum 2001), 50.
4 Christopher Gowans, Philosophy of the Buddha: An Introduction (Taylor & Francis, 2003), 150-52.
5 Excerpt from Rudyard Kipling's poem, 'If -' from Harry Ricketts, '"Nine and Sixty Ways": Kipling, Ventriloquist Poet' in Howard J Booth (ed), The Cambridge Companion to Rudyard Kipling (CUP 2011), 112.
6 Mary Oliver, 'Wild Geese poem' (Best Poems Encyclopedia) <https://www.best-poems.net/mary_oliver/wild_geese.html> accessed 19 May 2026.