Why Slowing Down Feels Stressful

It’s 8:47 PM on a Sunday and I’m lying on my bed staring at the ceiling. My phone is face down on the carpet. The window is cracked open and I can hear someone three buildings over yelling at their dog. I’m supposed to be resting. I’m on day two of a “digital detox” my therapist suggested. And I’m already counting the minutes until I can check Slack.

That’s the part I can’t explain to anyone. Why is slowing down so stressful? Like the act of doing nothing has become its own kind of performance. Something I have to be good at. Something I can fail at.

I think it started in college. I had three part-time jobs, two majors, a boyfriend who needed attention at 2am, and a roommate who only washed her dishes if you remembered to text her. Every minute had a job. Monday 7am gym, 9am psych lecture, 12pm shift at the campus café, 3pm organic chem, 5pm tutoring, 7pm dinner between the library and the bus, 9pm essay editing, 11pm finally shower and cry a little. I built that schedule. I was proud of it. I posted it on Instagram with the caption “grind don’t stop.”

Then I graduated and the schedule broke. I moved back home in 2024 because rent in Toronto was eating my entire paycheck. My old room felt smaller. The curtains were the same. My desk was where I left it. Mom had put a little ceramic cat on it — a gift I never asked for. I sat down and thought okay, so what now?

Nothing happened. That was the worst part.

I remember the first weekend I had nothing scheduled. I made it to about 11am before I picked up my laptop and started rewriting my resume just in case. Then I organized my Google Drive. Then I read an article about productivity culture. Then I made a list. Lists of lists of lists. I wasn’t even stressed about anything specific. I just couldn’t sit still. My chest got tight around 2pm. I called it “restlessness” because the word anxiety felt like an overreaction.

Did anyone else feel this when the calendar cleared? Like the absence of tasks became its own task?

I tried meditation. Twice. The first time I made it three minutes before I started planning what I’d eat for lunch. The second time I fell asleep on the yoga mat and woke up with a crick in my neck. The app sent me a notification that said “great job showing up today” and I wanted to throw my phone into the sea.

My friend Lucas told me I was “addicted to urgency.” He’s one of those people who can read a book on a Saturday. I’ve seen him do it. He sits on his couch with the curtains open and reads for four hours straight, no music, no phone. The first time I watched him do this I thought he was punishing himself. That’s how wired I was. Rest looked like punishment.

But I don’t think it’s willpower. I think my nervous system got trained to read stillness as a threat. Every silent moment was a moment something bad could happen. Bills. Late assignments. Mom calling. The landlord. The world had been yelling at me for years, and suddenly the volume dropped and I panicked.

So when someone says “just relax” or “take a bubble bath” or “you should try yoga” — I want to scream. Not because those things are bad. Because they assume the problem is that I don’t know HOW to relax. The problem is that I don’t trust it. The problem is that the second I stop, my brain starts narrating. And the narrator is mean.

I notice it on subway rides. The NYC line, where I work now, 4 train going uptown. Twenty minutes of just sitting. The first year I lived here I’d pull out a notebook and write down ideas. Then I’d switch to scrolling. Then I’d switch to podcasts. A woman next to me last week was just sitting there. Eyes closed. Hands in her lap. I almost asked her if she was okay.

That’s so embarrassing to admit but it’s true. I didn’t recognize stillness in another person. I assumed something was wrong with her. I assumed she was sick or hiding from someone or about to faint. And I caught myself doing it. I caught my brain reading her body like a malfunction.

I sat there the rest of the ride and tried to copy her. Eyes closed. Hands in my lap. The first thirty seconds I was okay. Then a thought came in about an email I forgot to send. Then another about my sister. Then I started counting how many stops were left. Within two minutes I was watching the door open and close, open and close, counting passengers like a security guard. Resting is the hardest job I’ve ever had.

And here’s the part that makes me feel crazy. The more I try to relax, the more I prove to myself that I can’t. So I add “learn to relax” to the list. And the list keeps growing. Meditation app subscription. Therapy twice a week. A book called The Rest Prescription I bought in March and haven’t opened. A breathing technique I’m supposed to do four times a day that I do maybe once on the bus. The tools for unwinding have become another thing I have to manage. Even my recovery has a calendar.

Last month I went back to Mom’s house for a long weekend. Tuesday afternoon, no one home, the house was so quiet I could hear the fridge. I walked into the kitchen and stood there. I opened the fridge. I closed the fridge. I opened it again. I think I stood there for like twenty minutes just opening and closing it. Looking at leftover rice and old jam. I wasn’t hungry. I was searching for a task.

That’s the most honest I’ve been about this. I was looking for something to DO because doing nothing made me feel like I was disappearing. Not in a poetic way. In a “where did I go?” way. Like if I wasn’t producing, I didn’t exist.

I’ve been working with a somatic therapist since November. She gave me a weird exercise. Stand with your feet flat on the floor, one hand on your chest, one on your belly, and say out loud “I’m here, I’m not doing anything, and that’s allowed.” She said the words “that’s allowed” like they were a magic spell. The first time I did it in her office I cried. Just full-on tears. My shirt was wet. She handed me a tissue and didn’t say anything for a while.

I still can’t really do it at home. The words feel fake in my own mouth. “That’s allowed.” Allowed by who? By my own brain? When did my own brain become the parent I have to ask permission from? But sometimes on the train I’ll put my hand on my chest and just feel it. The shirt moving. The breathing. No counting. No planning. Just the shirt moving for maybe ten seconds before my brain starts running again.

Is that rest? Ten seconds? Is that all I get?

I’m not writing this to be inspirational. I’m writing this because I just spent an hour sitting on the floor of my apartment instead of folding laundry and I felt like a failure and I wanted to put the feeling somewhere. The laundry is still unfolded. The email is still unsent. The book is still unopened. The cat on my desk at Mom’s house is still staring at me with its ceramic eyes like it knows.

I know slowing down is supposed to be good for me. I know the studies. I know what cortisol does. I know the research on heart rate variability. I’ve read the articles. I’m not against it. I’m just bad at it. And the badness of it — the shame, the guilt, the lying awake at 3am convinced I’m wasting my life — is louder than the relief ever is.

So if you’re like me, if Sunday nights feel like deadlines and bubble baths feel like work, I don’t have a tip for you. I have a tissue. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. We’re just standing in kitchens opening and closing fridges looking for a task that isn’t there.