Between the cost-of-living crisis — which is forcing many to get second or even third jobs — and the modern-day glorification of "grind culture", the idea of rest feels increasingly unattainable.
But for American author and community organiser, Tricia Hersey, it was the very act of rest that helped her "wake up" to the hamster wheel her life had become.
"I knew what was happening in my body, what I was feeling through exhaustion," she tells ABC RN's Soul Search.
"At a certain point, I knew my body could not go on anymore."
Amidst the busyness — studying theology, working, interning, and mothering — Hersey slowly began clawing back moments of reprieve.
A nap here, a bath there, a spot of daydreaming or meditation.
It was a practice, Hersey recalls, that her grandmother Ora used to observe, even when the matriarch's house was bustling with bodies and sound.
"In between two jobs and raising eight children, and all of the things that life was throwing at her as a Black woman in America, she made time to just be."
How napping became a movement
Hersey says her affirmation of rest isn't a wellness fad. It's a fierce critique of capitalism, a system she views as being predicated on productivity-at-all-cost and the disposability of human life.
"We've been raised from the time we were babies to this curriculum of grind culture, and this idea that our worth is connected to how much we get done," she says.
"Once a culture has broken down a person's esteem to [that point] … we're in crisis."
Hersey refused to take the situation lying down — figuratively speaking.
Following in the footsteps of her father, a leader in a Black Pentecostal church, she dubbed herself "The Nap Bishop" and founded The Nap Ministry in 2016.
It's an organisation that runs workshops (think "collective napping experiences"), uses performance art, and now speaks to more than half a million followers on Instagram.
Last year, Hersey doubled down on the message by publishing the manifesto Rest is Resistance. It became an instant New York Times bestseller.
Rethinking 'work'
America isn't the only country putting "productivity" on a pedestal. It's something that political economist Jonathan Cornford has witnessed in Australia, too.
"When we say productivity, let's be clear, what we mean by that is a financial return," he says.
"I would want to celebrate good, productive work, but with a much broader view of what is productive."
For instance, Dr Cornford points out that care work "that has traditionally been done by — and often foisted on — women is undervalued [or] not even called 'work'".
"These are such important professions for our culture, and yet we really treat them like mud."
Like Hersey, Dr Cornford views rest as being an essential condition of health, and of healthy work.
As an observing Christian, he points to Exodus in the Bible as backup: "the command to rest (to observe the Sabbath) is one of the first commands given to the Israelites."
In his own household, Dr Cornford and his wife Kim — whose background is environment restoration — have a unique approach to sharing the load.
More than two decades ago, they made the counter-cultural commitment to "living simply". Neither has worked full-time since then, and they've intentionally chosen a low-income, low-consumption lifestyle.
That doesn't mean Dr Cornford's life is full of R&R. He's a parent, veggie grower, volunteer, and founder of Manna Gum, a non-profit organisation that connects the dots between faith and economics.
"The simple way to consume less is to earn less … [because] most people will consume what their incomes allow them to," he explains.
"So, on one simple level it's been around constraining our consumption choices, [and] actively saying no to money, which I understand to be one of the spiritual disciplines that Jesus teaches in the gospel.
"In a much more positive sense, it's also been a choice for other things … for a richer way of life."
The decision to subsist on less-than hasn't come without sacrifices.
The Cornfords moved their family from Melbourne to Bendigo when inner-city rental costs became unsustainable. In Central Victoria, they joined Seeds community, "a small missional community in the disadvantaged suburb of Long Gully".
Dr Cornford realises that — for most people — the idea of turning down work, or "trying to get out of the system" is neither viable, nor appealing.
"In our complex global economy, that's impossible. We're all so implicated in it, and I think the question is … how can we try to do the best we can within the conditions," he says.
Rage against the machine
Melbourne-based lawyer Colleen Bolger believes the solution isn't escaping the current system — "I think that's utopian" — but fighting for a better work-life (or work-rest) balance for all.
She represents workers who've contracted asbestos- or silica-related diseases on the job.
It's an area of law that comes with an emotional and mental toll, but Ms Bolger says it's a privilege "to step into people's lives at a time when they confronting terminal illness, and to be able to perform a service for them".
Ultimately, she says her work is fuelled by rage. Rage at the way her clients have been treated and, more broadly, "at the way the system is organised, [making] people's lives expandable for profit".
Last year, Ms Bolger ran as the Victorian Socialists candidate for Melbourne, and she's currently on extended leave, with plans to return to work mid-2023. (Reading and political research occupies the majority of her time, she says.)
Ms Bolger recognises her privilege in being able to afford time off, particularly "in a time when there's a cost of living crisis, mortgage repayments are going up and inflation is massively outstripping wage increases".
But she adds her decision, like Dr Cornford's, "comes at the expense of other basic things".
Ms Bolger is aware that many Australians are finding that their financial situation isn't improving, no matter how hard or how much they work.
As an Australian Services Union delegate, she believes collective action is the best catalyst for change.
"Trade unions have fought for workers to have the weekend, parental leave and sick leave, and things that make it possible for people to have more rest and leisure to sustain them," she says.
Regaining autonomy through rest
Tricia Hersey is familiar with the strength of collective action.
She was raised in a church community that was founded by, and for, Black Americans. Many members were sharecroppers, descendants of enslaved workers.
"[It was] this brilliant collaboration of Black people … a community of Black autonomy," she says.
"They owned the church, they owned the land that the church was on, they owned the press that printed up all the books.
"To have the church as a foundation, kind of incubating whatever talents I thought I had, or what they saw in me, was such a beautiful, radical, comforting way to grow up."
Nowadays, Hersey's attention is on her own radical community — disciples of The Nap Ministry.
She says, like her childhood church, the ministry is grounded in deeply political roots.
"The message that rest is resistance … begins with history," she says.
"This goes back to the transatlantic slave trade to the story of Black resistance and Black liberation.
"Every person who is a descendant of enslaved Africans has a legacy of exhaustion, because they have a legacy [of their] bodies being used as machines."
That's why, Tricia argues, rest can be subversive: "I refuse to grind myself, and be a part of grind culture within a system that still owes my family a debt."
While intergenerational exhaustion is central to Hersey's own story, she's quick to point out that — regardless of race — capitalism has us all under its thumb.
"None of us are going to be free until we're all free. None of us are going to rest, until we all can look at this as a crisis of spirit, a crisis of body, a crisis of community that we are working ourselves into oblivion and working ourselves to death," she says.
"That's what my whole idea is that resting disrupts, and it pushes back … and says, 'No, this is not what's gonna happen. My body belongs to me.'"
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