What Rest and Restoration Really Mean and Why We Get Both Wrong
- 23 hours ago
- 6 min read
Anna is a journalling coach and wellbeing advocate on a mission to share the transformative power of writing with 100,000 people. Through her company, Writing with Purpose, she helps women navigate life’s challenges and rediscover their joy through creative expression and nature connection, alongside hosting the Writing with Purpose podcast.
You had a full weekend. Maybe you slept in, took a slow walk, or had an early night. Then Monday arrives, and you still feel flat. If rest has not been working the way it is supposed to, you are not doing it wrong. You are probably doing the wrong kind of rest for what you need.
Journalling for rest and restoration is not about writing, ‘I must relax,’ and hoping it sticks. It is a way of finding out, in your own words, what genuinely restores you, so you stop guessing and start protecting the right kind of downtime.
What is true rest?
Most of us picture rest as stillness. A lazy day in the garden, an afternoon nap, or snuggling up with a captivating book on the sofa. For some people, that is exactly right. For others, rest looks like a long walk, a trip to an unfamiliar city, or a HIIT session at the gym. Neither version is more correct than the other.
Rest and restoration are not the same thing, either. Rest is the pause, you stop doing. Restoration is what that pause gives back to you. You can rest for eight hours and wake up rested but not restored, still carrying the same low-level depletion you went to bed with. That gap is usually the reason a full weekend off does not fix how you feel on Monday.
There is no universal formula for closing that gap. What restores your friend might drain you completely. The only reliable way to find your own answer is to get curious about it in writing, rather than copying someone else’s version of a good rest day.
Why professional women run this deficit
If you are a high-achieving professional, you are likely already carrying more than most. Recent UK figures give some shape to why. One in six adults experienced symptoms of a common mental health problem, such as anxiety or low mood, in a single week, according to the most recent national survey, and women report these symptoms more often than men.
Burnout data tells a similar story closer to home. Mental Health UK’s 2025 Burnout Report, based on a YouGov survey of over 4,000 UK adults, found that a third of adults experienced high or extreme pressure or stress ‘always’ or ‘often’ over the past year, and nine in ten experienced it at some point. One in five needed time off work because of it. If you are managing a career, a household, and possibly a parent or a teenager at the same time, you already know these are not abstract numbers.
None of this means rest is a luxury you have not earned yet. It means the standard advice to do less and switch off is not specific enough to work for you.
Try the energy audit
This is a simple and eye-opening exercise because it turns a vague feeling of tiredness into something you can act on.
Take a fresh page and draw a line down the middle. On one side, write ‘Drains.’ On the other, write ‘Restores.’ Then list freely, without overthinking it. The same thing can be written on both sides, and it is okay to repeat yourself.
Drains and restores are not only activities. They can be people, places, environments, seasons, or even objects sitting in your peripheral vision. A cluttered desk can drain you as much as a difficult conversation. A phone call lasting five minutes with the right person can restore you as much as a full night’s sleep.
Once you have written both lists, reflect on your words. What is on your drains list that you have more control over than you think? What is on your restores list that you have been neglecting?
5 journalling techniques for rest and restoration
The energy audit: Revisit the exercise listed above monthly rather than doing it only once. What drains and restores you will vary with the seasons, your workload, and your calendar, so a single snapshot will not stay accurate for long.
The rest sprint: Set a timer for five minutes and write freely using one of these prompts. Where in your body do you feel tiredness first, and what usually shifts it? When did you last feel fully rested, even briefly? If rest could look exactly as you needed it to this week, what would change? There is no structure to this activity and no editing is required. Just get it down.
Future self journalling for rest: Picture yourself a year from now, properly restored rather than merely coping. Write a short letter from that future version of you to your current self. What does she do differently? What has she stopped apologising for? This technique works because it is easier to spot what is missing from your current routine when you can see the contrast written out in front of you.
The permission sentence: Complete this sentence stem as many times as you need. Write, ‘A form of rest I keep putting off is...’ Many people are surprised by what surfaces here. It is often not a lack of time that is the real obstacle, but a belief that this particular kind of rest is not allowed. Permit yourself to rest when you need it and in a way that works for you.
The weekly rest check-in: At the end of each week, write one sentence about what restored you and one about what you thought would restore you but did not. Over a month, this builds a much more accurate picture of your own patterns and behaviours than trying to remember them after the fact.
What gets in the way
The biggest obstacle usually is not time. It is the belief that rest has to be earned first. If you finish the task list, then you can stop. Since the list never actually ends, permission never arrives either.
Guilt is the other common block, particularly for women managing caring responsibilities alongside a career. Taking time for yourself can feel indulgent even when you know, rationally, that you function better afterwards. Writing about that guilt on the page, rather than pushing it aside, tends to loosen its grip faster than trying to reason your way past it.
There is also a common myth worth naming, that rest only counts if it looks peaceful from the outside. An intense activity or an adventure into the unknown can restore you just as completely as a nap, even though it does not look restful to anyone watching. Trust what the page tells you over what a wellness feed suggests you should be doing.
Begin your own audit
Journalling for rest and restoration will not add another task to your list. Done well, it removes a few because you stop spending energy on things that were never restoring you in the first place. Start with the energy audit this week. Open your page and create two columns. There is no pressure to get it right the first time.
If you would like support building a personalised rest practice that actually fits your life, book a Journalling Audit consultation. Together, we will identify the techniques that match how you actually recover, not the version of rest everyone else seems to be selling.
Read more from Anna Woolliscroft
Anna Woolliscroft, Writing for Wellbeing Specialist
As a certified Journal to the Self Instructor and holder of a Master's in Creative Writing and Wellbeing, Anna guides women in reclaiming their purpose through proven journalling techniques and creative writing strategies. From climbing Mount Kilimanjaro to transitioning her marketing business into meaningful work, Anna has learned that transformation begins with honest self-reflection. Whether through live workshops, on-demand training, self-learning resources, or her podcast featuring therapeutic writing experts, Anna's mission remains clear, to share the life-changing power of intentional writing with 100,000 people over the next decade, helping women move from feeling stuck to living with clarity and confidence.
