Most of us start the week the same way. The alarm goes, the phone is in our hand before our feet touch the floor, and within five minutes we’ve read three emails, two news headlines and someone else’s morning routine. By the time we’ve had our coffee, the week has already decided who we are going to be.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?