Permission to rest (even when we don't think we deserve it)

I’m learning to push back on guilt and remind myself that sleep is health—even though we’re taught to see rest as weakness and exhaustion as proof we’re enough.

Hey friends! I wrote the bones of this earlier in the new year, before the new president took office. Before every day brought new orders, new firings, the dismantling of policies, the testing of our country’s checks and balances, and the unraveling of democracy itself.

When I talk about this with people oppose what’s happening, I see different ways of coping—some are appalled and fighting back, some are shutting down to survive, and some still believe it won’t touch them.

But since January 20, we’ve watched rights stripped away with breathtaking speed. History tells us democracy rarely collapses overnight—it unravels slowly, inch by inch. It starts by dividing people, feeding fears, and shielding those who already hold the most power.

The demise of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and the mass termination of federal employees—some with exemplary records—is what’s weighing on me right now. And this is just the beginning.

So, I feel conflicted recommending rest right now—especially if you’re a woman, trans, queer, a person of color, or an ally. But the truth is, we need to take care of ourselves, especially now. And sleep is central to that.

It shouldn’t be, but sleep is also a privilege.

As a white woman who benefits from considerable privilege, I don’t have all the answers here, but it raises questions I keep circling back to:

Am I doing all I can?

Should I feel guilty because I’m in a position to prioritize the basic necessities of life while so many others cannot?

I’d love to hear what you think—about any of this.

Or maybe just … what’s keeping you up at night?

Most of my life, I was the type who couldn’t just sit.

Pretty much everything—besides being a self-made career woman and later a working mom—was centered around exercise. It wasn’t just my primary means of controlling my body, it was my way of proving my worth. If I couldn’t be thin, let me be strong and go way beyond the masses in my athletic endeavors. Marathons? Check. Mountain biking? Check. Competing in Olympic weightlifting? Making it to Nationals? Check, check. But no matter how much I did, it was never enough.

My life was way out of balance.

I had to be moving, doing—preferably something that burned calories or advanced my standing in the Working Mom Olympics. And preferably multitasking. Why just talk to the kids when I could clean the kitchen while listening to them? (Admittedly, I’m sometimes still guilty of this.)

Weekdays started hours before anyone else awoke. This was my time, enough for coffee, a quick breakfast, and a workout. Later, when I took up weightlifting and began competing, those workouts replaced family dinners.

Weekends were not for slowing down; they were my chance to burn more calories and check off everything I hadn’t accomplished during the week.

Then I married a man who gave himself permission to rest. He worked his ass off—solving problems, taking calls at all hours, workdays and weekends. But when he rested, he did it fully and guilt-free. (Shouldn’t we all have this?)

His perfect weekend involved sleeping in, having sex, reading in bed, and hiking and biking. This was a foreign concept to me. My dream weekend involved an 8 a.m. double-long, group mountain bike ride, then getting all the things done. Oh, and sex if it could be fit in.

Needless to say, we had a bit of a culture clash at first, but eventually he won—or perhaps we reached a happy compromise (if you’re the type who doesn’t need to turn everything into a competition).

Most of the time these days, we wake up without alarms on weekends. I let myself ease into the day—he sleeps in, we have sex, and then we hike or bike, and hang with the kids.

The old me gritted my teeth through the early days of this… at least until foreplay.

Things are different these days. And not just because of my husband—though feeling secure in our relationship is what gave me the courage to quit diets less than two months after marrying him. That one small decision transformed nearly every part of my life. I used to tell myself I was being healthy, but the truth is, it was always about being skinny.

These days, actual health—not shrinking myself—is the goal, and sleep is the foundation for that.

Exercise still matters, but it’s not about burning calories or making up for what I ate. Now, I move because it makes me feel good—inside and out.

I’m learning to embrace my imperfections—but, more importantly, I’m learning to treat myself with kindness. Accepting my body doesn’t mean loving it every day, but even with weight gain, I feel better about myself than I ever thought possible.

Now that I’m no longer intentionally trying to shrink my body into oblivion, sleep has taken center stage. I seem to need more of it—or perhaps I am just finally hearing the signals my body has been sending all along, instead of trying to shut them up.

Last spring, the signals got even stronger.

I was waking at three in the morning a few nights a week, drenched in sweat, anxiety, or both. On those nights, I paid for it the next day—unable to concentrate, let alone create. I spent many of those days in a haze, suffering from brain fog—though I didn’t know to call it that yet.

At first, I blamed it on the strain of working for myself, taking on too much, and not setting good boundaries between work and non-work life. But it kept getting worse.

I had always known I was a little different—I struggle with empathy and tend to go deep on things that interest me—but there were other pieces that didn’t fit. My family suspected autism, but it didn’t explain these new symptoms. I was overwhelmed, had trouble focusing, couldn’t concentrate, and was dropping balls left and right. At their urging, I got tested last May.

The finding: inattentive ADHD. But it just didn’t fit. How could I suddenly struggle with something I’d supposedly been living with my whole life? The neuropsychologist said I’d masked it—a combination of high intelligence and trauma. But why now? I was dubious.

I didn’t know it then, but I was also in the early stages of perimenopause. I later learned the most commonly reported symptom of women at this stage of life was—you guessed it—brain fog. It’s also a time when many women are first diagnosed with ADHD.

It still didn’t—and doesn’t—fully make sense. Did I have ADHD all along, or was perimenopause simply mimicking the symptoms? Given how much I’ve seen family members struggle from ADHD, it didn’t feel like it fit. Plus, I tried ADHD meds, and they didn’t seem to make a difference. My best guess was that I’d had mild ADHD my whole life, and perimenopause just turned up the volume.

I realized I’d probably never know. Turns out, I’m not alone. Women in this stage of life are often left piecing it together themselves—our doctors still get so little training in menopause, and fewer still connect it to what’s happening in our brains. So after a while, I came up with my own term to describe what I was going through—Perimenopause-induced ADHD. Anyone else experiencing this?

No matter the name, I knew I had to do something. I was burned out. Fried. Every sentence took twice as long to write. Words that once flowed—or at least trickled—became boulders I had to push uphill. I second-guessed myself constantly.

I scaled back work for clients, hoping that cutting the cord on outside demands would free up capacity for my own writing and the book I was working on.

But the fog didn’t lift. I forgot names—people I’d known for years. I lost words—basic, everyday ones. Sometimes I’d just type whatever wrong word came to mind (“I think it starts with an M…”) and hope the right one would show up later.

The 3 a.m. wakeups continued.

Until I started hormone therapy.

Progesterone was a miracle worker. I had no idea diminished hormones were the reason for those wakeups. Within weeks, I was sleeping through the night for the first time in what felt like forever. Not just sleeping—sleeping deeply.

But then, it seemed like I needed even more sleep. I was barely able to keep my eyes open after eight at night. After I dropped my daughter off at school in the mornings, I would often crawl back into bed and sleep for a couple more hours.

After a lifetime of ignoring it, the ability to sleep should have felt like a gift.

Instead, I alternated between worrying something was wrong and feeling guilty. That’s where I’ve been the last couple of months. (Although fostering puppies at the start of the year confirmed I’m so over my sleep-deprivation early motherhood days.)

But still, even now, when I know better, it’s hard to let go of the old “doer” identity. And sleep, like rest, feels like an indulgence. Especially now, in a climate where women’s rights are threatened—where caring for ourselves is a privilege most of us don’t get.

And while adding hormones eased other symptoms (frankly, some I didn’t even know were from perimenopause), it so far hasn’t ended my brain fog. What it has shown me, though, is how much sleep, stress, and wearing myself out worsen it. I’m no longer trying to do it all, but I am trying to find my happy place.

I don’t have a pretty little bow for this. My brain fog persists. But I’m learning to recognize the patterns—the way it worsens when I take on too much or skimp on sleep. I’m learning to push back on the guilt, to remind myself that sleep is central to health—even though we’ve been conditioned to see rest as weakness, and exhaustion as proof we’re doing enough, so we can tell ourselves we are enough.

Some days, I slip back into old ways of thinking.

But more and more, I’m starting to believe my body is worth caring for.

Even on those days when it asks for more than I think I deserve.

Now it’s your turn. Have your sleep needs, or just how you see it, changed with time? Do you see sleep as a necessary evil or the foundation of health? Where are you at in all of this?