When Rest Doesn’t Work: What the Nervous System Is Asking For

A woman once described her first day off in months like this:

“I sat down on the couch with nothing to do and my heart started racing. I felt agitated, restless, almost panicky. I remember thinking, why can’t I even enjoy resting?”

Nothing was wrong. The house was quiet, and the work emails were paused. Her body just did not believe it was safe to stop.

If we are honest with ourselves, experiences like these are more common than we admit. Many people reach a point where exhaustion is low-grade and constant. They are tired even after sleeping. They are on edge without knowing why. They may feel irritable, foggy, emotionally distant, or overwhelmed by things that once felt manageable. So naturally, they assume that they need better habits or a longer holiday.

What they often need instead is nervous system recovery.

When rest doesn’t help

The nervous system is built for survival, not modern life. Its role is to detect threat, mobilise energy, and return the body to a state of calm when danger has passed. In theory, this system should move fluidly between activation and rest.

In practice, many people spend years stuck in a state of low-level alert. Not enough to trigger panic, but enough to keep the body braced. Deadlines, financial stress, unresolved trauma, relationship strain, and constant digital stimulation teach the nervous system that it is necessary to be vigilant at all times.

Over time, this becomes the body’s baseline.

The result is a strange disconnect. You may know logically that you are safe, but your body does not respond. Your shoulders stay tense, and your breathing stays shallow. Your thoughts race even in stillness. When you finally stop moving, you are even more uncomfortable.

Why “just relaxing” can feel impossible

People are often surprised to learn that relaxation is not a natural state but a learned one. If the nervous system has spent years prioritising alertness, it will not immediately settle just because the calendar opens up.

This is why well-intended advice can backfire. Being told to “just slow down,” meditate, or take a break can increase frustration when the body refuses to cooperate. Being still can feel unsafe. Silence can feel overwhelming, and calm can definitely feel unfamiliar.

Neuroscience supports this experience. According to Dr Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory, the nervous system is constantly scanning for cues of safety or threat, and even worse, this usually happens outside of conscious awareness. When the nervous system has learned to expect danger, it stays activated even in neutral environments.

The body is simply doing what it learned to do.

The long-term cost of staying switched on

A chronically activated nervous system affects far more than mood.

Research published by the American Psychological Association has shown what many people already feel in their bodies. Long-term stress doesn’t stay in the head. It shows up in poor sleep, a run-down immune system, digestion problems, and a body that feels constantly on edge. Eventually, the body takes the hit for what the mind has been forcing itself to endure.

Many people begin to feel disconnected from themselves. Hunger cues blur. Fatigue becomes normalised. Pain is ignored. Emotions feel muted or overwhelming with little in between. Even the healthiest of relationships can feel draining.

At this stage, people often say they feel “off” without being able to name why. They may not identify as anxious or depressed, yet something feels persistently wrong.

This is often the nervous system asking for attention.

Reframing the goal 

One of the most important shifts in nervous system healing is reframing the goal. Recovery is not about fixing something broken. It is about retraining something that adapted under pressure.

Your nervous system learned to survive your life as it was. It became good at managing stress, even when that stress was unrelenting. Recovery asks the system to update its understanding of the present.

This does not happen through forcing yourself to “get better.” It happens through repeated experiences of safety.

Safety is sensory: It lives in breath, posture, rhythm, connection, and environment. Small moments matter more than big changes.

Examples of sensory healing:

• Feeling your feet on the floor.
• Eating without rushing.
• Letting your breath slow naturally.
• Making eye contact with someone who calms you
• Sitting outside without scrolling on social media

These moments are signals, and each one tells the nervous system that it does not need to stay on guard right now.

Why slowing down can feel worse before it feels better

One of the most misunderstood parts of nervous system recovery is the initial discomfort.

When the body has been bracing itself for a long time, letting go doesn’t feel good at first. When the noise and busyness fall away, emotions that have been buried tend to show up. Grief, anger, exhaustion. Sometimes all at once. It can feel like going backwards, and a lot of people respond by speeding up again.

In reality, this phase often signals that the nervous system finally feels safe enough to let go.

Trauma researcher Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps Score, notes that the body keeps score long after the mind has moved on. When stress decreases, the body may begin processing what it previously could not afford to feel.

This is not something to rush through. It is something to be supported through.

The role of therapeutic support

Nervous system recovery is rarely an “I can handle this myself” process. Regulation is relational.

A consistent therapeutic relationship helps in ways that insight alone cannot. It creates a sense of safety and reliability, allowing the nervous system to slowly learn that it doesn’t have to manage everything by itself.

This matters even more for people whose stress comes from trauma, long-term burnout, or emotional neglect. Even when life improves, the body may stay on guard. Support from a trained professional can help make sense of those signals instead of fighting them.

Studies published in Frontiers in Psychology show that creative therapies focused on regulating the nervous system regulation can significantly reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and trauma-related stress.

What recovering the nervous system actually looks like

Nervous system healing is quieter than most people expect.

It does not mean constant calm, but it does mean fewer spikes and faster recovery after stress. It holds the ability to pause instead of react. It gives sleep that gradually deepens and emotions that move through instead of getting stuck.

It often shows up in subtle ways that aren’t noticeable in real time. Over the course of weeks, you notice tension sooner, and you recognise when you need rest. You respond rather than brace, and you generally feel more present in your own body.

Your energy becomes available again, and your creativity returns. Relationships feel less draining, and decisions feel less urgent.

This is regulation.

Learning to listen to the body

One of the most challenging aspects of nervous system recovery is learning to trust bodily signals again.

Many people have spent years overriding hunger, fatigue, stress, and emotional discomfort in the name of productivity or responsibility. Slowing down can feel indulgent or even irresponsible.

Recovery asks different questions.

What happens if you respond to stress earlier rather than later?

What if rest is preventative rather than earned?

What if listening to your body is an act of strength rather than weakness?

These mental shifts often require unlearning deeply held beliefs about worth and resilience. 

They are not quick changes, but they do unfold gradually.

A quieter kind of healing

Healing does not always arrive with clarity or relief.

Learning to let the nervous system recover is an act of trust. Trust that your body knows how to heal when given the right conditions. Trust that slowing down will not undo your life. Trust that safety can be relearned.

At Centres for Health and Healing, we approach recovery as more than symptom management. It is about rebuilding safety from the inside out, honouring both the nervous system and the experiences that shaped it.

If rest has never quite landed for you, you are not doing it wrong. Your body may simply be learning, perhaps for the first time, how to stand down.

And that learning takes time.

We are here to help. Reach out today to see all we have to offer.

References:

• American Psychological Association. (n.d.). Stress effects on the body. https://www.apa.org/topics/stress/body
• Cherland E. (2012). The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, Self-Regulation. Journal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 21(4), 313–314.
• Haeyen, S. (2024). A theoretical exploration of polyvagal theory in creative arts and psychomotor therapies for emotion regulation in stress and trauma. Frontiers in Psychology, 15, Article 1382007. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1382007
• van der Kolk, B. (2014). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. Viking.