Your Wednesday evening practice gets canceled, and the evening is suddenly free. A book that you have planned to read is still waiting on the table.
You take some hot tea in your favourite cup to enjoy while reading the book. But you never start reading. You are soon cleaning the kitchen that does not need it. You water the plants, vacuum the hallway, collect and throw dirty clothes to a washing machine and so on. Finally it is getting late and it is bedtime, leaving the book untouched again. Maybe tomorrow, you think.
If you can’t relax even when you have time, the cause isn’t necessarily a lack of skill. Stopping can bring up guilt or restlessness, and then it feels better to keep busy than to sit still. An empty moment can feel like something missing, or like a threat.
Rest can feel undeserved if you’re used to valuing yourself based on what you are getting done. Doing leaves a trace, like a clean counter or a finished list, but being at ease leaves nothing to show for it. At work, a meeting ends early, and the half-hour gap is filled with replying to emails and chat messages, because just sitting there would feel wrong.
Why Does Resting Cause Guilt?
In Koo’s study about the topic, some people felt guilty about leisure time. They felt less of that guilt with other people around than when they were alone. This habit may have grown stronger in environments where appreciation came from doing. At school it came from grades, in a hobby from visible progress, and at a first job from never leaving anything unfinished.
What Comes to Mind When I Stop?
Thoughts you haven’t made room for can get their turn only when nothing else is at hand. While you wipe the counters, your mind follows your hands, and the worry about next week is left waiting.
Fergus’s study found that being idle felt more uncomfortable for people who worry more. Turning your attention elsewhere can ease an intense feeling for a short while. For some people, staying busy can also keep out of mind the things that would come up if they stopped.
This same evening can still look the same from the outside, even when the reason is different. Wiping the kitchen counters can be a pleasant pastime or a way to keep moving. Doing things isn’t a problem in itself, and it can also be meaningful and freely chosen. Sometimes restlessness also has a practical cause.
What If I Can’t Relax Because Time Isn’t Really Free?
In that case, restlessness can be a fair assessment. On another evening, your calendar is empty, but a client’s proposal has to be finished before the weekend. In a review by Wendsche and Lohmann-Haislah, high job demands among working people were linked to a harder time detaching from work in free time. Poor sleep or a lot of caffeine can also keep you feeling restless.
What Happens Right Before I Start Doing Something?
Next time you have time to spare, you can notice the point where that time first slips into doing something. What do you start doing, and what do you have time to think right before it?
Why it’s hard to stop can come down to many things. This is where Rootfinda could help. Rootfinda is an AI-powered self-reflection tool. In the exploration, it goes through one area of life at a time, for example what’s weighing on you now. From what you tell it, it compiles a Psychological Blueprint, a first picture of your repeating patterns. The exploration is designed to take about an hour at most. The picture gets sharper as you tell it more. If something doesn’t fit, say so.
After the exploration, you can move on to goal-oriented conversations. There you can look at the moment when stopping starts to feel strange and what comes to mind then. When you talk to Rootfinda about evenings spent keeping busy, Rootfinda can help you work through the underlying reasons why resting feels hard, even when you have time.
