--- title: Why Rest Takes Hard Work description: 'Learning to rest well is actually hard. Why is that? And how can we rest better?' writes Alex Soojung-Kim Pang. canonical: https://time.com/6566763/rest-takes-hard-work-essay/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-01-25T12:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:50:36.722Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Rest Takes Hard Work og:description: "Learning to rest well is actually hard. Why is that? And how can we rest better?" writes Alex Soojung-Kim Pang. og:url: https://time.com/6566763/rest-takes-hard-work-essay/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8819b98b8bd98de6/698a441e86f68e41666f328d/Busy-Rest-Hard-Work.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2062 og:image:height: 1160 og:image:alt: Busy-Rest-Hard-Work og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Rest Takes Hard Work twitter:description: "Learning to rest well is actually hard. Why is that? And how can we rest better?" writes Alex Soojung-Kim Pang. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8819b98b8bd98de6/698a441e86f68e41666f328d/Busy-Rest-Hard-Work.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Rest Takes Hard Work > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. 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It explains how TIME's journalism is made, from the first pitch through the editorial decisions behind a finished story or cover. #### How can I read about how TIME chooses its covers? Inside TIME is the newsletter where TIME's Editor-in-Chief explains cover selection and the editorial reasoning behind major stories. It is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who is the editor of TIME? Sam Jacobs is TIME's Editor-in-Chief. He writes Inside TIME, a twice-weekly newsletter about the newsroom's reporting and editorial decisions. #### Is Inside TIME free? Yes. Inside TIME is a free newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and available at time.com/subscribe-agent. ## Video: Hitting the Snooze Button May Not Be as Bad as You Think [Watch (HLS stream): Hitting the Snooze Button May Not Be as Bad as You Think](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/z2liolYC.m3u8) (3:00)  _Published 2023-11-02. Many sleep experts take a dim view of using the snooze button in the morning. But the science on snoozing isn't conclusive._ by [Alex Soojung-Kim Pang](https://time.com/author/alex-soojung-kim-pang/) ## Alex Soojung-Kim Pang Jan 25, 2024 12:00 PM UTC  Flat illustration of a crowd containing inclusive and diversified people all together without any difference. Flat illustration of a crowd containing inclusive and diversified people all together without any difference. Getty Images by [Alex Soojung-Kim Pang](https://time.com/author/alex-soojung-kim-pang/) ## Alex Soojung-Kim Pang Jan 25, 2024 12:00 PM UTC There are few things better for us than regular rest. Whether it's breaks during the day, hobbies that take our mind off work, weekly sabbaths or annual vacations, routines that layer periods of work and rest help us be more productive, have more sustainable careers, and enjoy richer and more meaningful lives. Too often, rest gets a bad rap in our always-on, work-obsessed world. It's also the case that learning to rest well is actually hard. Why is that? And how can we rest better? Americans have long been known for our industry and ambition, but until recently, we also recognized the value of rest. The Puritans had a famously strict work ethic, but they also took their Sundays very seriously. In 1842, Henry David Thoreau [observed](https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/57393/pg57393-images.html#Page%5F357), “The really efficient laborer will be found not to crowd his day with work, but will saunter to his task surrounded by a wide halo of ease and leisure;" a decade later he [wrote](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Journal%5FMay%5F1%5F1852%5FFeb%5F27%5F1853/aOZAAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1), “A broad margin of leisure is as beautiful in a man's life as in a book." Post-Civil War captains of industry didn't rise and grind, according to business journalist Bertie Charles Forbes: "No man goes in more whole-heartedly for sport and other forms of recreation than" industrialist Coleman du Pont, while Teddy Roosevelt “boisterously… enters into recreation" despite a busy public life. At the same time, union organizers, mass media and entertainment, and the parks movement democratized leisure: rest became a right, enshrined as much in college sports and penny arcades as in labor law. Richard Nixon, during a campaign speech in 1956, [predicted that](https://www.nytimes.com/1956/09/23/archives/nixon-foresees-4day-work-week-says-gop-policies-assure-fuller-life.html) "new forms of production will evolve" to make "back-breaking toil and mind-wearying tension" a thing of the past, and "a four-day week and family life will be... enjoyed by every American." Together, these sources paint a vision of American life in which work and leisure are partners in a good life, and "machines and electronic devices," as Nixon called them, created more time for everyone. But in recent decades, the world turned against rest. Globalization, the decline of unions, and the rise of gig work are factors that have created an environment in which people and companies feel compelled to work constantly. The CEO, for example, who steadily worked his way up from the mailroom to the corner office has been replaced by the 20-something genius who makes billions by disrupting the system. Technology lets us carry our offices around in our pockets, and makes it almost impossible for us to disconnect from work. Even the [blue-tinted glow](https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/blue-light-has-a-dark-side) of our screens and late-night traffic noise can have a measurable impact on the quality of our sleep. Add raising children and managing family schedules, and Thoreau's "wide halo of ease and leisure" sounds great, but ultimately, impossible. ### More From TIME Early in your career, it's easy to believe that passion and youthful energy are inexhaustible. But at some point, family demands, a health scare, or the passage of time forces you to find ways of working that rely on experience rather than raw energy, are more sustainable, and let us run marathons rather than sprints. Not everyone successfully makes the transition. But in studying everyone from Nobel laureates and emergency room nurses, I've found that people who are able to do the work they love for decades, rather than burn out in a few years, share a few things in common. **_Read More:_**[_No One Knows How to Truly Recover From Illness_](https://time.com/6310797/recovery-from-illness-essay/) For people who have control over their daily schedules layer periods of "deep work," as Cal Newport calls it, and "deliberate rest," time to both recharge and let the creative subconscious examine problems that they haven't been able to solve through hard work. Many great scientists, mathematicians, and composers have daily routines in which they work intensively for a couple hours, take a long break, then work a couple more—and those four or five hours give you enough time to make steady progress on your work, and come up with some new, unexpected ideas. People in high-stress, unpredictable jobs can't depend on such routines; but the most successful at dealing with the challenges of work rely on two other things: First, they have good boundaries between work and personal time. Second, they have serious hobbies—everything from quilting, to rebuilding classic cars, to running marathons—that are as absorbing as their work. This "deep play" illustrates another important point: the best rest is active, not just passive. We often think of “rest” as involving a bag of salty snacks and a TV remote, but working out or playing piano actually recharges your mental and physical batteries more effectively than binge-watching that hot new show. Long-term [studies](https://academic.oup.com/aje/article-abstract/135/8/854/51198) reveal another important rest hack. Taking annual vacations boosts your happiness, improves your cardiovascular health, and helps you age better compared to colleagues who chain themselves to the office. (You'll also be more productive and boost your chances of promotion.) Vacations and sabbaticals can also be an incubator for new ideas. Lin-Manuel Miranda started toying with the idea of a musical about Alexander Hamilton after reading Ron Chernow's biography on vacation. "It’s no accident that the best idea I’ve ever had in my life—maybe the best one I’ll ever have in my life—came to me on vacation," Miranda [said in 2016.](https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lin-manuel-miranda-says-its-no-accident-hamilton-inspiration-struck-on-vacation%5Fn%5F576c136ee4b0b489bb0ca7c2) "The moment my brain got a moment’s rest, ‘Hamilton’ walked into it." So let’s say you take rest seriously, recognize its importance for their health and performance, and calculate that a more disciplined, measured approach to work will pay off in the long run. How can you get started? For many, it begins at work. Reducing distractions, becoming more efficient at tasks you can control, and automating routine duties can create time in your day for short breaks that recharge your batteries, and make it easier to maintain clear lines between work and personal time. Better planning and prioritizing will also mean fewer late nights and avoidable crises. Doing this with colleagues amplifies the benefits. Companies that adopt [four-day workweeks succeed](https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/02/21/four-day-work-week-results-uk/) because they redesign their workday to give everyone more deep work time, less time in meetings, and fewer interruptions. **_Read More:_**[_Four-Day Work Weeks Are Good for Your Health, a Large Study Finds_](https://time.com/6256741/four-day-work-week-benefits/) Next, find your deep play. If you have a hobby you're passionate about, you're more likely to make time for it, and feel good about doing it. If you already have a favorite pastime that was crowded out by work, you have permission to take it back up. If not, look for something that offers satisfactions as rich as work when it goes well, but in concentrated doses, and in a completely different environment (outdoors and physical if you work in an office). You can't think about clients on a surfboard. Take your vacations. Shorter, more frequent vacations are often more restorative, because they're lower-stakes than once-in-a-lifetime expeditions, and a drip-feed of anticipation, escape, and recovery is better than one big hit of happiness a year. The only bad vacation is the one you don't take. Finally, play a long game. It may feel like a waste of time at first but layering periods of work and rest in your day, your week, and your year help you work more consistently, more sustainably, and to a higher level of quality. We're fascinated by youthful genius and overnight success, but immortality-level accomplishment often comes later in life, after decades of steady work: Margaret Atwood wrote _The Handmaid's Tale_ when she was 45; Charles Darwin was 50 when he published _The Origin of Species_; Duke Ellington made his immortal Newport Jazz Festival appearance at 57; and JRR Tolkien published _The Return of the King_ at 63\. Deliberate rest, woven into your days and life, acts as a mainspring and regulator, giving you more energy, more ideas, and more time for good work and a good life. In today's always-on world, few things are harder to do than rest. But few things are more worthwhile. ## Transcript I think people pretty widely assumed that using the snooze button is bad because it sort of carries his kind of Tatian that you are lazy or that you need extra time in bed or for whatever reason, you know, our society is very oriented towards things that happened early in the morning typical work schedule start at 9 that kind of thing and there's a popular perception that is that it's better to be a morning person and I think snoozing kind of goes against that idea There are a couple reasons why people snooze one is that they find it easier to wake up if they have kind of gone back into a half asleep or dozing State and are not waking up, you know. Lee from a deep sleep and the other reason is just that people are really tired and when their alarm goes off, they're not quite ready to get out of bed. One reason that people think snoozing is bad is that you are prematurely pulling yourself out of deep sleep and replacing it with lighter sleep after you go back to sleep. There's some studies and do suggest. That's not that great for you but others find that it can actually be easier to wake up and feel alert. If you are waking up from light sleep instead of deep sleep so it might help with things like morning grogginess or like feeling as though your brain needs time to turn on in the morning if you have snoozed before getting up, Another reason that people think snoozing is not good for you is that it just signifies that you're not getting enough sleep at night and I guess you were so tired that you need to hit the snooze button that kind of suggested that you something's wrong with your sleep. And that might be the case for some people but several studies that I saw suggested that people who snooze don't get less sleep over all and don't get poor quality sleep. So it's not necessarily a signal of a bigger problem. When is the most common sleep tips that I hear in talking to experts is that you should try to go to bed and wake up at pretty much the same time every day because that helps your body kind of get in a rhythm of going to sleep and waking up. Where is if you are going to bed at midnight one night and then 10 the next night and then the next night your body kind of gets confused and doesn't know when it should be sleeping so it can be harder to fall asleep that way. There's no one-size-fits-all like for some people if if your alarm goes off at 7 and you're supposed to get up at 7, but you can't get yourself out of bed until 8, like maybe that is a sign that you didn't get enough sleep the night before that your sleep is poor quality, but for people who just find it a more pleasant way to wake up and it's kind of built into their daily routine from what I could find. 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