Maybe you’re reading this in bed, or at the kitchen table, or in the ten quiet minutes before everyone else wakes up. Wherever you are, I want to ask you a question that’s been sitting with me all week:

When was the last time you rested without explaining it to anyone, including yourself?

Not rest because you were sick. Not rest because you’d “earned” it. Not rest wrapped up as self-care with a product attached. Just rest, because you’re a human being with a body, and bodies need it.

If you had to think about it for a while, you’re not alone. And I don’t think that’s a personal failure. I think it’s a very old story.

The women who were ordered to rest

In the late nineteenth century, an American doctor called Silas Weir Mitchell became famous for something he called the “rest cure”. It was prescribed mostly to women diagnosed with nervous exhaustion, hysteria or what was then called neurasthenia. Women who were anxious, low, overwhelmed or simply restless in the small lives they’d been given.

The treatment sounds almost gentle until you look closer. Women were confined to bed for weeks, sometimes not allowed to sit up, read, write or see their families. They were fed large amounts of milk and food, massaged, and kept from any form of intellectual effort. The idea behind it was that a woman’s nerves were fragile, and that thinking, creating and ambition were what made her ill.

The writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman went through a version of this cure and was advised, afterwards, to live as domestically as possible and to stay away from writing. She later said it nearly drove her to the edge of her sanity. Out of that experience she wrote The Yellow Wallpaper in 1892, a short story about a woman slowly unravelling in a room she isn’t allowed to leave. Virginia Woolf was also prescribed rest cures, and wrote about them with the same bitterness. If you’ve read Unwell Women by Elinor Cleghorn, you’ll know how often women’s bodies and minds were “treated” in ways that were really about keeping them in place.

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Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I keep thinking about that. Here was a form of rest that wasn’t rest at all. It was silence, imposed from the outside. Rest as a way of making women smaller.

And the women who were never allowed to rest

At exactly the same time, of course, the women washing those patients’ sheets, cooking their milk puddings and raising other people’s children were getting no rest at all. Rest has always been divided along lines of class, race and money. For many women, being “too delicate to work” was a luxury they’d never be offered.

In 1989, the sociologist Arlie Hochschild gave a name to something many women already felt in their bones: the second shift. Women had entered the workforce, but the housework, the childcare and the emotional labour of keeping a home running hadn’t left. They’d simply been added on top.

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So here’s the strange double inheritance many of us carry. On the one hand, a history where rest was used to control women. On the other, a reality where rest was something women were never quite allowed to have. No wonder lying on the sofa on a Saturday afternoon can feel complicated.

Rest as resistance

In the last few years, I’ve been really moved by the work of Tricia Hersey, founder of The Nap Ministry, and her book Rest Is Resistance. Her argument, very simply put, is that a culture built on endless productivity treats our bodies like machines, and that choosing to rest is a way of refusing that story. Rest, for her, is not a reward for work or a way to be more productive afterwards. It’s a reclaiming of our own humanity.

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The theologian Walter Brueggemann makes a similar point in Sabbath as Resistance. He describes the Sabbath not as a list of religious rules, but as a weekly act of defiance against a world that measures people by what they produce. One day in seven, you stop. Not because the work is finished, but because you are more than your work.

This is the part that moves me most as a woman of faith. In the creation story, God rests on the seventh day. Not because he’s tired, but because rest is woven into the very rhythm of creation. Rest isn’t the gap between the important parts. It’s part of the design.

The Jewish philosopher Abraham Joshua Heschel described the Sabbath as a palace in time: a space we don’t build with our hands, but enter. I love that image. A sanctuary we don’t have to earn, only step into.

The difference between being made to rest and choosing to rest

So what separates the rest cure from rest as resistance? I think it’s this: who is holding the pen.

The women of the rest cure were told to lie down so they would stop thinking, stop creating, stop wanting. The rest Tricia Hersey and the Sabbath tradition talk about is the opposite. It’s the kind of rest that gives you back to yourself. Where your thoughts can finally surface. Where you hear your own desires again. Where you remember who you are when no one needs anything from you.

Forced rest makes a woman smaller. Chosen rest makes her whole.

And I wonder if that’s why rest can feel so threatening, even to ourselves. A rested woman thinks more clearly. She notices what isn’t working. She says no more easily. She takes up a little more space.

Questions to sit with this weekend

I don’t have a neat conclusion for you, and I don’t think I’m meant to. So instead, here are a few questions to take with your tea:

• What did the women before you, your mother, your grandmother, teach you about rest, with their words or their lives?

• When you rest, whose voice do you hear telling you that you shouldn’t?

• What would a rest that is truly chosen look like for you this weekend?

• And if rest is part of how you were designed, what might change if you stopped treating it as optional?

Maybe the most radical thing you can do today isn’t another productive Saturday. Maybe it’s closing this tab, putting your feet up, and letting yourself simply be.

With love, Ninalotte

I’d love to hear where these questions take you. Leave a comment, or reply to this email. I read every single one.

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There’s a moment many of us know far too well. It’s a week before your period, you slept eight hours, and you still wake up feeling like you’re moving through honey. Your workout feels heavier, your patience is thinner, and a little voice says: what is wrong with you? Last week you could do all of this.

Nothing is wrong with you. You’re simply not the same woman every week of the month, and you were never meant to be. Today I want to show you why your need for rest changes across your cycle, and why honouring it is not weakness but biology.

A 24-hour clock in a 28-day body

Men’s hormones follow a roughly 24-hour rhythm: testosterone is higher in the morning and lower in the evening, and that pattern repeats day after day. Women have that daily rhythm too, but on top of it we have a second, monthly rhythm: the menstrual cycle, in which oestrogen and progesterone rise and fall over roughly 21 to 35 days.

Most of our world, from school timetables to office hours to training plans, was built around the 24-hour rhythm. So when we feel different from one week to the next, we assume we’re failing a standard that was never designed with our bodies in mind.

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Let’s walk through the four phases and what each one asks of you when it comes to rest.

Menstruation: your inner winter

When your period starts, oestrogen and progesterone are both at their lowest. At the same time, your uterus releases prostaglandins, compounds that help the lining shed but also drive cramps and a general feeling of inflammation. Add the blood loss itself, and it makes complete sense that many women feel tired, inward and low on energy during these days.

This is the phase where rest is most obviously needed, and it’s also the one we’re most often told to push through. Your rest here can look like: earlier nights, warm meals, gentle movement such as walking or stretching instead of intense training, and fewer social plans where possible. Think of it as a short winter: a time to slow down, take stock and let things go.

Follicular phase: your inner spring

After your period, oestrogen starts to rise. Many women notice their energy, mood, motivation and social drive climbing with it. This is often when we feel most like the “productive” version of ourselves.

Rest still matters here, but you’ll probably need less of it to feel good. This is a lovely time to start new projects, try a new workout or plan your month, while still protecting your sleep so you don’t spend this energy faster than you can replenish it.

Ovulation: your inner summer

Around ovulation, oestrogen peaks and there’s a short surge of luteinising hormone, with a small rise in testosterone. For many women this is the phase of peak confidence, connection and outward energy.

The risk here is subtle: because you feel so good, it’s easy to say yes to everything and fill your calendar for the weeks ahead, forgetting that a different version of you will have to live those weeks. A gentle practice for this phase: before you commit to something, check your cycle and ask, will I want this when I’m in my autumn?

Luteal phase: your inner autumn

This is where our theme really comes alive. After ovulation, the empty follicle becomes the corpus luteum and starts producing progesterone. Progesterone does several things that directly affect how rested you feel:

• It raises your core body temperature by roughly 0.3 to 0.5°C. That’s exactly why temperature tracking can confirm ovulation, but a warmer body can also make it harder to fall and stay asleep, especially in the days before your period.

• It nudges your metabolism up slightly. Your body is doing more behind the scenes, preparing the uterine lining for a possible pregnancy. This is one reason appetite often increases in this phase.

• It has a calming, sedating side. A substance your body makes from progesterone, allopregnanolone, acts on the same calming GABA receptors in the brain that are involved in relaxation and sleep. Many women feel this as a drowsier, more inward state.

Then, in the last days before your period, progesterone and oestrogen both drop. For some women that drop brings poorer sleep, mood shifts, irritability or anxiety, which we know as PMS. So the luteal phase often asks for more rest, more nourishment and more gentleness at the same time that our bodies are working harder.

This is your inner autumn: a time to finish rather than start, to edit rather than create from scratch, to turn inward and to prepare.

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Stress, cortisol and your cycle

There’s one more piece of the puzzle that shows why rest is not optional. Your stress-response system and your reproductive system are closely connected in the brain, in an area called the hypothalamus. When your body perceives chronic stress, whether that’s too little sleep, too much training, under-eating or constant mental pressure, it can quite literally deprioritise reproduction.

This can show up as later ovulation, a shorter luteal phase, more intense PMS, irregular cycles or, in more extreme cases, a missing period altogether. Your body is not betraying you when this happens. It’s protecting you, deciding that this is not a safe moment to invest in reproduction. Rest is one of the most direct ways to tell your body that it is safe again.

What the research does and doesn’t say

I always want to be honest with you here. Research on how the cycle affects energy and performance is still young, and women have long been left out of clinical and sports studies. When scientists average results across many women, the differences between phases are often smaller than the stories online make them sound, and individual women differ a lot from one another.

That’s exactly why I believe in cycle literacy rather than strict cycle rules. Your body is not a textbook. The four seasons are a map, but you’re the one who knows the landscape.

Your practice this week

• Note where you are in your cycle today. Day 1 is the first day of full bleeding.

• Rate your energy and sleep from 1 to 5 every evening this week. Just two numbers, nothing more.

• Look for your own pattern. After two or three cycles, you’ll start to see which days you truly need more rest. That’s information no app, book or coach can give you better than your own body can.

• Plan with your seasons. Put demanding tasks in your spring and summer when you can, and protect your autumn and winter with more space.

You’re not lazy. You’re not inconsistent. You’re cyclical, and that’s not a flaw to fix. It’s a language to learn.

With love, Ninalotte

Which phase do you find the hardest to rest in? Tell me in the comments, I read every one.

This article is for education and isn’t a substitute for personal medical advice. If your sleep, mood or cycle changes are significantly affecting your life, please talk to your doctor or gynaecologist.

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This week I want to suggest something radical, and I mean that word gently: what if you planned your rest before you planned your work?

Why rest is not the reward

Most of us were taught, without anyone ever saying it out loud, that rest is something you earn. You finish the to-do list, you tick every box, and then, if there’s anything left of you, you’re allowed to sit down. The problem is that the list never ends. So rest becomes the thing we postpone until we’re sick, burnt out or on holiday, and even then we feel guilty about it.

Your body doesn’t work like a to-do list. It works in rhythms. Your nervous system moves between two states all day long: the sympathetic state, which helps you act, focus and respond, and the parasympathetic state, often called “rest and digest”, where repair, digestion, hormone balance and recovery actually happen. Both are good and both are necessary. But modern life keeps us in the first one almost constantly, and that has a cost: for our sleep, our digestion, our mood and, very often, our cycle.

So rest isn’t the reward at the end of a productive week. Rest is part of what makes a good week possible in the first place.

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The ritual: ten minutes on Monday morning

This is the ritual I’d love for you to take into your week. It takes about ten minutes, and you don’t need anything except a wall, a pen and your calendar.

1. Feet before phone. Before you check anything, put both feet on the floor and one hand on your belly. Take three slow breaths, letting the exhale be longer than the inhale. A long, slow exhale is one of the simplest ways to signal safety to your nervous system. You’re telling your body: we are not in a hurry yet.

2. Legs up the wall. Lie on the floor with your legs resting up against a wall for five minutes. No podcast, no music, no scrolling. Just let your lower back soften into the ground and notice how your body feels at the very start of the week. Tired? Heavy? Restless? Light? There’s no wrong answer, only information.

3. Plan your rest first. Open your calendar and, before anything else, block three moments of rest this week. Not “if I have time” rest. Real appointments, treated as seriously as a meeting. A 20-minute walk without your phone. An evening with no plans. A slow Saturday morning. Write them in first, and let the rest of the week arrange itself around them.

4. Choose a word for the week. I like to carry one sentence with me. This week mine is the old invitation from Matthew 11:28: Come to me, all you who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. It reminds me that rest isn’t something I have to manufacture or achieve. It’s something I’m allowed to receive. If faith isn’t your language, choose any word that brings you back to yourself: slow, enough, soft, here.

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Small rest, all week long

Rest isn’t only the big things like holidays and lie-ins. Most of it lives in tiny moments you can weave into an ordinary day:

• Eat sitting down. One meal a day without a screen, chewing slowly. Your digestion works best when your body feels safe.

• A digital sunset. Pick a time in the evening, even just 30 minutes before bed, after which your phone stays in another room.

• Move to rest, not just to burn. A slow walk, gentle stretching or a mobility session counts. Movement can be a way of coming home to your body rather than punishing it.

• Say one honest no. To an invitation, a favour, an extra task. Every no to something that drains you is a yes to your own capacity.

A gentle note on guilt

If you try this and feel guilty, restless or even a bit anxious lying on the floor with your legs up the wall, you’re not doing it wrong. That feeling is often what years of over-functioning feel like when they finally slow down. Be patient with yourself. The nervous system learns safety through repetition, not through one perfect Monday.

Your body is a temple, and a temple isn’t a factory. It’s a place of stillness, of presence, of being held. This week, let’s treat it that way.

With love, Ninalotte

Tell me in the comments: what’s the one rest moment you’re putting in your calendar first this week?

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But steadiness doesn’t mean never allowing yourself to unravel. I also believe in giving emotions room to be felt and expressed, rather than quietly tucking them away. Reading books such as Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score and Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life has encouraged me, in different ways, to reflect on the relationship between our emotional lives and our bodies. Yet we so often move through life from the neck up, distant from what is happening within us.

With that in mind, I have grown comfortable allowing my feelings to rise to the surface; to move through me rather than linger, unacknowledged, beneath it. When you are on your own, there is a certain ease in this. It becomes more vulnerable when you are sharing your life with someone who gets to witness those tender, unguarded moments.

And yet, whenever tears begin to flow, or emotions arise that I don’t quite know how to navigate, he is there to catch me. Steadily, calmly, gently. Whether I’m feeling a little tender before my period, returning from a gnarly, unforgiving surf session, or simply having a day when everything feels closer to the surface, his presence gives me room to breathe.

I am still quite new to surfing, and much of my commitment to it comes from him. He has been a surfer for years. But he isn’t simply a surfer. He is an utterly obsessed, gloriously fixated surfer.

Even when the waves aren’t good, he will head out “just to paddle a bit.” The very part of surfing that so many surfers consider a necessary chore is something my fiancé actively delights in. He also needs to be in the lineup at least thirty minutes before anyone else shows signs of life. This regularly puts him in the water at an hour when calling it “morning” feels generous, paddling out into complete darkness.

But after years of this devotion, he has become remarkably familiar with the ocean and her ways.

Yes, her ways. The ocean is feminine, and you can’t convince me otherwise.

Water has long been associated with the feminine in spiritual traditions and poetic imagery. Its unpredictability. Its capacity to take on so many forms: ice, hail, snow, rain, rivers, seas, lakes, streams, mist, and vapour. Its gentleness and ferocity. Its power and grace. The way it can cradle you one moment and humble you the next.

I could go on and on.

And recently, a thought occurred to me: when a man immerses himself in that energy, literally and figuratively, every day, for hours at a time, perhaps he begins to develop a particular sensitivity to its rhythms. A familiarity with changing conditions. A respect for something he cannot command.

Perhaps that familiarity carries over into how he meets the feminine: her different colours and seasons, her expressions and moods.

Out in the ocean, you learn to remain calm when the water grows rough. To steady yourself through an unexpected wipeout. To recognise when to paddle, when to wait, and when to surrender to a force greater than your own. You learn that panic rarely helps, and that strength sometimes looks like patience.

In a way, surfing becomes a lesson in how to move through life.

And I feel the fruits of those lessons in our relationship. In moments when my emotions swell, he remains calm, steady, and grounded. His composure helps me find my own footing again. I can feel what I need to feel, knowing that there is something solid beside me.

It brings to mind the verse Matthew 7:25: the image of a house enduring rain, rising waters, and fierce winds because its foundation rests on rock, not on sand.

“And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.”

In those moments, he feels like that rock.

I can’t help wondering how much of his steadiness has been shaped by his love of surfing… by all those years of meeting the ocean as she is, in every mood, without expecting her to become something else.

And even for me, as a woman, the water offers a way to become more familiar with my own nature. To discover that I can be gentle and powerful, frightened and brave, all within the same morning. To find my balance, lose it, and find it again.

What a gift that is.

So, the moral of this story is: surf. And, more importantly, take your man surfing.