#rest

I used to think rest days meant I'd given up. That taking a walk instead of going to the gym was "phoning it in." That skipping one morning meditation session meant I'd lost my discipline entirely.

Here's what I've learned:

your body and mind don't operate on an all-or-nothing system

I've been thinking about how we treat rest days, and honestly, we've got it backwards.

We act like rest is something we earn after we've worked hard enough, pushed long enough, or proven ourselves worthy enough. We apologize for taking time off. We feel guilty about a lazy Sunday. We scroll through our phones on our one free evening, too exhausted to actually rest but too wired to sleep.

Rest isn't a reward. It's a requirement.