Why Rest Isn't Working (And What Your Nervous System Actually Needs) | Out of Overwhelm Ep. 2

You're going on vacations. You're doing the spa days. You're watching Netflix on Sunday. And you're still exhausted.

This episode is not about needing more rest. It's about why the rest you're already doing isn't landing — and what's actually going on underneath it.

In this episode of the Out of Overwhelm series, stress and life coach Anne Jones breaks down why high-achieving women can do all the "right" recovery things and still feel depleted, what your autonomic nervous system is actually doing when you try to rest, and why the real solution has nothing to do with optimizing your recovery routine.

What you'll learn in this episode:

Why your nervous system stays in low-grade survival mode even when life looks fine on the outside. The difference between sympathetic activation, dorsal vagal shutdown, and what genuine nervous system rest actually feels like. Why the stress bucket keeps overflowing no matter how much sleep, self-care, or downtime you add. The five types of rest — and why physical rest is the one we overestimate most. The question that shifts everything: why does your life require this much recovery?

If you've ever come back from a vacation more tired than when you left, this episode is for you.

Join the email list to be first to know when registration opens for the free Stop the Spiral Masterclass on July 15: [https://link.annejonescoaching.ca/subscribe]

You know what to do. You're not confused about the plan. You're just not there when life gets loud.

This show is for the high-achieving woman who can still function, still perform, still hold everything together — and still feel like she's quietly disappearing on herself in the process.

Here, we talk about the real reason you fall off (it's not discipline), what's actually happening in your body when you override, override, override, and how to stop starting over every Monday.

You don't have a discipline problem. You're disappearing on yourself. And that's a nervous system problem — one you can actually change.

I'm Anne Jones — nervous system coach, former RMT, and certified fitness coach of 16+ years. I'll help you build the kind of steady, grounded capacity that holds when life stops cooperating.

No hustle. No perfect conditions. No performing your way through another week.

Just honest conversation, practical tools, and a way back to yourself.

Start here:

• Free Guide: The High-Achiever's Guide to Losing Fat Without Obsessing Over Food or Workouts: [https://www.annejonescoaching.ca/free-guide-your-body-your-way]

• Deeper support + essays: Join my Substack: [https://annejonesfit.substack.com/]

Work with me:

• Website: [https://www.annejonescoaching.ca/]

Connect With Me:

• Instagram: [@an...

Transcript

Speaker 0:07

Welcome to the Anne Jones Show. I'm Anne Jones, stress and life coach, former registered massage therapist, certified fitness coach for 16 years, and someone who spent a very long time confusing exhaustion for a productivity problem or a laziness problem This podcast is for high-achieving women who are tired of holding everything together and then being told that the answer is a bubble bath. Here, we get into the real stuff, why your nervous system is running the show, why rest doesn't feel restful, why you can't seem to stay consistent even when you genuinely want to change, and what to actually do about it No hustle, no self-improvement theater, just honest conversations and tools that you can use in your real life. I'm so glad that you're here. Let's get into it Welcome to episode number two in my Out of Overwhelm series. Today's topic is rest, or specifically why it's not working for you. And before you roll your eyes and think like, "Okay, yeah, I know that I need more rest. People tell me all the time. I don't need a podcast to tell me that," I really just want you to stay with me, okay? Because that is actually not what this episode is about. It's not about you needing more rest and relaxation. This episode is actually about the idea that you might be chasing the wrong solution entirely. Most of the women I work with are, are actually not resting too little. They're recovering constantly. They're going on vacations. They go to the spa sometimes. They're watching Netflix on the couch on Sunday. They're doing all the things that they're supposed to do to refill the tank. And they're still exhausted. And it's not that they're not trying to rest, it's that the rest isn't landing, and that is a very different problem. And then it just feels like you're putting in time and feeling exactly the same. So today, I want to talk about why this happens, because I've been there, too. So here's the problem: rest that doesn't make you feel rested. Let me paint a picture that might sound familiar to you. You get to Friday. You are done. You have been running all week, work, kids, meals, appointments, holding the emotional weight of everyone around you, trying to fit your own stuff in somewhere in the margins, and then that, like, elusive self-care, sleep. Friday night comes, and you're like, "Oh my God, I just want the weekend, TGIF." you do the things. You sleep in on Saturday, you watch something on Netflix, maybe you pour a glass of wine or two, maybe you take a bath, maybe you book a little pedicure, get outside for a walk. Love that for you. But then Sunday night rolls around, and you are somehow just as tired as you were on Friday. And then Monday arrives and the whole thing starts again. Does this sound familiar? Or how about this one? You go on a vacation, a real vacation. You fly somewhere. You're, "Oh, oh, oh," out of the office. You're supposed to be off, but it's like your brain didn't also get on the plane with you. You're at the pool thinking about the project that you didn't finish before you left. You're lying in bed at night mentally running through your inbox. What if somebody needs me? You feel guilty for, like, doing nothing. You even feel guilt for being able to afford and go on a vacation, or maybe you're just so overstimulated from the kids and the travel and the logistics of being away that by the time that you get home, you need a vacation from your vacation, and you're like, It's not worth doing again. It's not worth the hassle." That is also not a discipline problem. It is also not a laziness problem. This is a nervous system problem. This is a pattern. Your nervous system has been in low-grade survival mode for so long that rest doesn't feel like rest anymore. It feels like waiting for the next thing, the other shoe to drop Here's why rest isn't the answer. I wanna introduce you to a reframe that I think is gonna land differently than the usual self-care messaging, and here it is You don't need better recovery from your life. You need a life that requires less recovery. Sit with it for a second. we've been sold this idea that the solution to burnout is more rest, more self-care, more recovery practices, and the wellness industry has done an incredible job of turning that into a product. The right candle, the right supplement, the right morning routine, the right evening routine, the right bedtime routine, the right freaking pillowcase. And I'm not saying that those things are bad, like that might be the thing that changes the game for you. But I'm just saying that they're Band-Aids on a wound that is staying open. Because if you are sleeping eight hours a night, meditating every morning, doing your journaling, taking these supplements, booking your massages, and it just feels like you're checking a box and you're still chronically exhausted, the problem is not your recovery strategy. It's not those things. There's nothing wrong with those things. I do a lot of those things. The problem is the volume of what your nervous system is being asked to hold. So think about it this way. Imagine you have a bucket, right? And every day things go into the bucket, stress, demands, requests, decisions, emotional labour some guilt, oh, interruptions, distractions, overwhelm, conflict, managing a household for a family Or managing a team or both, right? And then every night you try to empty the bucket a little bit. Sleep, rest, self-care. Okay. But if the rate of filling the bucket with the things is greater than the rate of emptying, the bucket is always full or mostly full, and then no amount of rest practices will will solve a problem where the bucket keeps getting full. This is the stress bucket. The solution is to reduce what is going into the stress bucket. So here is the nervous system piece, and this is where I want to go deeper on the nervous system because this is the layer that most people miss or, or don't know about. Your nervous system is always scanning for safety. That's its job. It's to Interpret how you experience the world. When it detects a threat, and I'm using the word threat because that's what your nervous system is trying to do, but I'm using it loosely because your nervous system does not distinguish between a physical threat, a lion chasing you, a saber-toothed tiger, blah, blah, blah, and a passive-aggressive email from your mother-in-law. It activates survival responses for both. Fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. There's probably one that you are more prone to, and they are not character flaws. They are your biology. They can also be a learned pattern that if we keep practicing, becomes an ingrained pattern and then becomes your baseline, which is what I mostly see. So when you're a high achiever, a high-functioning woman who has been in overdrive for years, your nervous system can get stuck in that low-grade survival mode that I mentioned. You're not in acute crisis, but you're certainly not regulated and calm either. You're just bracing all the time. however that feels in your body: clenched jaw, clenched stomach, clenched traps. And when you are dysregulated, your nervous system doesn't just rest when you lie down and go to sleep.

Speaker 2 6:17

Your autonomic nervous system has essentially three settings, safe and connected, parasympathetic, mobilized and urgent, sympathetic, or shut down and numb, which in polyvagal theory is the dorsal vagal state. Most high achieving women are cycling between sympathetic and dorsal without ever really landing in parasympathetic.

Speaker 6:37

It either keeps going, keeps managing, working, fixing, one more thing, do, caretake, because it's a strategy, right? Doing feels safer than stopping. Or it numbs. This is the dorsal portion of your sympathetic nervous system. It numbs, it scrolls, it snacks, it disappears into the TV without actually unwinding. Also, TV is a passive activity, not active, so it's not actually restorative like reading a book is. I digress. Both of these can look like rest from the outside, right? The doing, the journaling with the energy of doing, the meditation with the energy of ticking the box, or the scrolling with the energy of numbing out, the snacking with the energy of dissociating. They can both look like self-care But they are not if the energy behind it is coming from a place of depletion and lack. And here's the thing about any of these patterns. They're not weaknesses of yours, they are protection. Your nervous system learned that staying busy or staying numb kept you safe, and it is very loyally doing its job. Thank you, brain. Thank you, nervous system. The problem is that that job is now costing you everything because rest requires a regulated nervous system that feels safe enough to let go, and that doesn't come from taking more time off.

Speaker 3 7:44

I wanna tell you something personal because I think it will make this real and understandable for you. So, several years ago, it was pre-COVID I think, so it was like tw- maybe the year of 2019, I believe. This is when I first, in my adult life had been working. I was like making a little bit of money, and I booked myself a hotel night for my birthday. If you follow me, you know where cause I have a favorite hotel in Vancouver, and we lived in Vancouver at the time, so it was, it was like a staycation. so I booked my favourite hotel, went to my favourite restaurant, my favourite spot. By every external measure, it was a perfect birthday weekend, solo birthday weekend. And after my lovely dinner, my lovely night, my lovely spa, I went back to my lovely hotel room and I cried like a baby, like grief sobbed. There was nothing wrong. I just felt so guilty, so undeserving. Not just for leaving my family overnight, but for this life that I had created. Like I didn't have permission to actually be in it, rest, and enjoy it. And there is definitely, a worthiness piece in there as well, but it didn't feel safe for my nervous system to enjoy it, which I, I do see as a common theme in my clients. But here's what I know now that I didn't understand then. That wasn't a mindset problem. That wasn't me being a brat or whiny or selfish. It wasn't me being ungrateful at all. That was a nervous system that had been running in survival mode and had never learned that ease, peace, and joy, calm, like never learned those states. I experienced those things briefly, but never learned how to stay in that state, and I find that most of my clients don't either. It genuinely did-- I didn't know how to allow something that good to land. Rest requires a nervous system that feels safe enough to receive rest and blessings, and that does not come from just taking time off, right? I just gave you the example. I did the thing. I spent the money. I stayed the night. It didn't feel like that in my body, not because there was anything wrong with the circumstances, because I didn't know how to hold it. It comes from your nervous system learning slowly through repeated experience, exposure, and intentional practice that it is okay to put things down. It is okay to enjoy. It is okay to receive. You are allowed to be here. You deserve to be here. Good things are safe to feel. We are not taught this.

10:03

So I want to walk you through some of the types of rest, because I think that when most of us say we need rest, we usually mean physical rest. We mean lying down. We mean sleeping. we mean not moving our bodies or lifting stuff up and putting it down, and that is one kind of rest. It is very real, and it is important, but if you are emotionally or mentally still working while your body is horizontal, you are not resting. Have you ever, thought in your sleep? Has this ever happened to you? I think I'm a light sleeper at the best of times. I'm a good sleeper, but a light sleeper, but when I'm anxious and stressed, I wake up, and it's like not even dreaming. I'm thinking in my sleep, problem-solving in my sleep, and then I wake up and pick it right back up. That is a symptom to me that I need to regulate, and my brain needs a break, and this is where a lot of high achievers get stuck. Okay, I'm being physically still. I'm meditating. But you're mentally still running at full speed, and I do this, too. You're on the couch. You're watching TV with your kids, but you're running through your to-do list. You're on vacation. You're at the pool, but you're guilt-tripping yourself about not being productive. You're at the spa, thinking, "What is the point of this? I'm not producing anything." You're in the tub, but you're rehearsing the conversation you need to have with your team tomorrow Your body stopped. From the outside it looks like you are resting, but your nervous system is not resting. So you wake up the next morning still tired. Why am I tired? Not 'cause you didn't sleep enough, although maybe you didn't, but because your mind never actually came offline. if you're dysregulated through your whole day and then you do everything right to get a good sleep at night, it catches up with you. It's like you're still buzzing from the day even if you think you're sleeping. And I've noticed with clients that when we proactively regulate nervous system throughout the day, they sleep through the night again. So it's worth saying that it's not just what you do to rest, it's whether you're actually present for it. Late night me time that runs until midnight when you're watching Off Campus is not the same as rest. It's just creating a different kind of tired. There's also emotional rest, which is the need to stop performing, stop people pleasing, stop managing everyone's feelings, walking on eggshells, being the one who holds it together, plans everything. Stop explaining yourself. Stop taking up less space so that other people can be comfortable. Woo, that's exhausting. And then there's mental rest, too. The need to stop making decisions. Decision fatigue is real, and for women who carry enormous cognitive loads, all of us, the sheer number of decisions you're making in a day is honestly hilariously exhausting in a way that sleep does not fix. and listen to last week's podcast if you're thinking, "But I have to do it all." Think, look, go back. Listen to last week's podcast. And then there is sensory rest, because if you're overstimulated by noise, screens, notifications, demands, and inputs all day long, your nervous system is working overtime just to process the environment. I think I also understand about myself now that I do have a sensitive nervous system, which could be you too. So if you're feeling all of these things, you could also have a sensitive nervous system. But we often don't even know this 'cause we're not even paying attention to how we feel in our body. Multitasking is a myth. We don't multitask anymore. It's like so '90s. But it's for inputs, too. you can only receive one email. I can't also be listening to my daughter. I can be doing this right now. If you are trying to do multiple things at once, you are failing. Your brain can only do one active thing at a time. You can listen to a podcast and fold laundry because one of them is passive. You can't do two active things at once. I would encourage you to practice doing one thing at a time, even if it's uncomfortable, because your nervous system is, uh, begging you to. And then, segue, there's nervous system rest, which is actually the most important kind and the one that nobody talked about until very recently. and nervous system rest is the experience of safety, genuine safety. It's the feeling of being able to fully exhale, of not bracing physically or emotionally or mentally, of not anticipating the next thing, of being in your body in the present moment without dread or urgency or foreboding. That is not available in a busy, stimulating, overwhelming life, no matter how many candles you light and grounding pads or vibration plates you stand on. And for some of you, there are real physiological things going on underneath all of this, right? Perimenopause, thyroid, iron, things that genuinely affect your recovery capacity. That is real, and it is important. But even when that's true, even when those circumstances exist, the nervous system layer still applies. You always got a nervous system. a regulated system recovers better even when biology is complicated or condition is present So here's the real problem. If rest alone isn't the answer, what is? Dang. I wanna be very clear here because I don't want this to sound like I'm telling you to rest less. That is not what I'm saying. I'm here for the resting. You know it. What I'm saying is that the conversation needs to shift from how do I just optimize my rest and recovery. Let's... We don't need to fucking optimize everything. Let's shift from how do I optimize my recovery and rest better to why does my life require this much recovery? We literally live in the easiest time. There's the most convenience and s- accessibility that we've ever had. Things should feel easier, and they don't because we have all these other inputs that I've already talked about. So instead of, like, how, how to optimize and make my recovery and rest more efficient, why does your life require so much recovery? The question that I ask myself as well, you're not alone in this, but it's a harder question because it asks you to look at the, the structure of your life, the commitments and obligations and choices of your yeses and your defaults. So it can be kind of confronting 'cause it's kinda like much of this we are choosing. That's what my clients really found, and back to you as well. So asking this question of us asks you to look at how much you're doing that you either consciously chose with reluctance or not even realizing that it wasn't in your best interest or never consciously chose. Just sort of taking it on autopilot. It asks you to look at the emotional labor you're carrying that nobody consciously gave you, but nobody's, like, consciously taking from you either, and you're not delegating it. It asks you to look at what you keep adding to your plate without ever asking whether the poor plate can hold it, and it asks you to q- a question that feels almost radical for a high-achieving woman. What can I stop doing? What can I let go of? Can somebody else do this? Do I just have to not not do this at all? Not optimize, not do more efficiently, not do better, just let go of. Stop. That's where the real rest lives. Not in the recovery, in the reduction, in the ruthlessness of prioritizing what we desire and need in each moment. And let go of the rest. That's where our ego gets a little bruised because we have, we think that we're so important that we need to do it all all the time, all ourselves also. So here's what this actually looks like in practice. I'm not naïve. I know you can't just stop your life. I'm not telling you to do that. You have responsibilities. Those are real. You have people depending on you. You have things that need to get done. We all do. I'm not saying you blow up your life. I'm saying start noticing what you're choosing. Start paying attention to the things in your life that are consistently draining you, and people, the things and people that are constantly draining more than they're giving to you. The commitments that you said yes to before you had all the information about what it would cost you. The r- default roles you've fallen into, the relationships where the energy only flows in one direction, out. The standards that you hold for yourself that nobody even knows about. This is what my clients tell me about. Nobody else knows about the high expectations you have for yourself. The roles that you played that you took on so long ago that you forgot that you had a choice, or you outgrew it. Cause here's the truth. A lot of the things that are draining you are not mandatory. They feel mandatory. You think they're mandatory, but they're not. And when you start getting curious and questioning them, not all at once, but honestly, you start to create a little bit more space. Not more space for t- to fill with to-dos, space to breathe, space to enjoy, space to choose. And a nervous system that gets to breathe and choose consistently is a nervous system that can actually rest when you put it down to rest Okay, I want to land this somewhere practically before I let you go. If you are someone who resonates with everything that I just said, if you're tired of trying to recover from a life that never seems to slow down, I want you to get on my email list because I am creating a free masterclass for you. It will be happening on July the 15th, and I'm going to walk you through live exactly what it looks like to start working on the source of the exhaustion. So we're going to identify your specific to you default stress response, and then work on the source of your exhaustion versus just the symptoms. We're gonna talk nervous system, we're gonna talk about patterns that are keeping high achieving women feeling stuck in survival mode, and I'm going to give you actual tools that you can use. You will leave with your own specific personalized stress removal tool based on your specific stress response. the link to join my email list is in the show notes. The masterclass will be completely free. Make sure you get on my email list, and make sure you add me to your safe folder so you're actually getting the emails so that you know when registration opens. There will be two times to choose from. and then until next time, take care of yourself, not by adding more to your recovery routine, but by asking what can you put down? And I will see you next week for episode three.