What if you slowed down instead of sprinting forward?
As the calendar flips to January, the pressure to “start the year with a bang” can feel overwhelming. Messages about resolutions, boot camps, and productivity hacks flood our feeds, urging us to hit the ground running. But what if you slowed down this January instead of sprinting forward? What if rest and introspection could be acts of resistance against our relentless hustle culture? What if embracing the so-called sin of “sloth” is exactly what your body, mind, and spirit need?
Speaking of sin…
After a holiday season that likely saw you indulging in a fair share of gluttony (festive feasts), greed (gift exchanges), and perhaps even a touch of lust (seasonal pleasures), it might seem counterintuitive to recommend giving in to yet another one of the seven deadly vices. But sloth, as misunderstood as it may be, offers a unique pathway to balance and wholeness. Resting isn’t laziness — it’s a profound act of self-care that replenishes our nervous system and has the potential to foster a sense of collective transformation.
And for some of us, resting is hard work. I’m a mission-driven Capricorn who’s been hustling since birth. (Literally — I was born prematurely on December 27th, eager to get started, and then chagrined to find that baby Jesus and Christmas had already stolen my spotlight.) But as I’ve journeyed into midlife, I’ve embraced the value of slowing down.
While working on The Pink Zones project, centered on what helps women thrive as they age, I’ve been interviewing women older and wiser than myself and researching what it means to live a meaningful, healthy, and joyful life into old age. The message is clear: A rich existence isn’t made by pushing harder, optimizing more, or clinging to an endless “to-do” list of self-improvements.
I now see rest and introspection as essential practices we must build into the fabric of our lives — well ahead of elderhood. Rocking in chairs, mulling over memories, daydreaming, looking at the sky, or simply cherishing the unhurried present isn’t just for the old — it’s for the wise. Taking the slow track is a way to live a vibrant life in a world worth savoring.
So, if you’re ready to embrace rest as your top resolution of the year, let me share some compelling perspectives — and some simple yet transformative ways that you can get your “still” on.
Subverting the sin of sloth
This past year, I attended a retreat in North Carolina with Elise Loehnen and Courtney Smith, the former of whom is the author of the New York Times bestseller, On Our Best Behavior: The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good. In it, she explores how cultural narratives — particularly around the seven deadly sins — shape women’s lives. Her opening chapter opens on Sloth and sheds some light on how we come to see our need for rest as a failing. She writes: “Good women are tireless and hardworking, with no professed interest in or requirements for rest, either at work or at home.”
In my clinic work as a naturopathic doctor with an eye to working on identifying and treating “underlying root causes,” I often see women who present with complaints of burnout manifest as exhaustion, low mood, and disrupted sleep. While I run conventional and functional labs to rule out anemia, thyroid issues, or HPA axis dysfunction (and will recommend herbs, adaptogens, or hormones to refill an empty cup), the trickier work lies in addressing issues that don’t correlate to bloodwork: the over-giving, the self-imposed demands, and the absence of rest. All those habits are hallmarks of the “good” women Loehnen says so many of us feel obligated to be.
The transformative potential of rest
At times in my work, I had a sense that I was an enabler, using the tools of functional medicine to help people keep on keeping on when their bodies just really needed to stop — and to be tended to more gently. This concern was reinforced when I read the revolutionary work of Tricia Hersey, founder of The Nap Ministry and author of Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto. In it, she argues that rest is a subversive act with the power to alter our society.
Hersey challenges the idea that we pause simply to recharge, to then plug back into the machine of productivity. She critiques our obsession with busyness and reframes rest as an act of defiance against capitalism, white supremacy, and grind culture. Rest, she argues, is not a luxury but a path to liberation, healing, and reclaiming our humanity. It’s a practice that connects individuals to themselves, thereby enabling the collective to create a more empathetic world. (Imagine a society in which all the members were well-rested. The decrease in road rage alone would be profound.)
Rest can be a habit
I believe that part of the creation of a more sane, balanced, and equitable world begins with small, consistent practices that all of us can integrate into regular daily life. These habits can make your body a more welcome, tended and grounded home, no matter the external circumstances.
For millennia, humans have been attuned to natural rhythms, working in alignment with diurnal cycles and rituals via moving, dancing, breathing, and honoring sunrise and sunset and seasons. Incorporating these practices into our daily lives doesn’t have to be complex: Hustling to make it to an early-morning yoga class to do sun salutations might even be counter-productive. Rather, I want to suggest some practical ways to help you settle, recalibrate your nervous system, and build solid emotional scaffolding (a prerequisite for introspection, connection, wholeness and sustainable change in the next year, and beyond). Here are some simple places to start:
- Take a nap
- Look out a window — focus on trees, noticing if there is wind or the movements of birds or other life outside
- Take in — really observe and appreciate — a sunrise or sunset.
- Deep belly (or diaphragmatic) breathing
- Take savasana, aka corpse pose, by lying on your back, a common resting asana (pose) done at the end of a yoga class
- Legs-up-the-wall pose (a restorative yoga pose where you lie on your back with your legs resting against a wall at a 90-degree angle)
- Gratitude or prayer: Reflect on moments of gratitude or engage in a spiritual practice that resonates with you
- Sit with a hot tea and your hands around the warm mug, taking in the aroma and daydream
- Take a hot bath: Add Epsom salts, rich in magnesium, to relax your muscles and nervous system (pair it with a guided meditation or audiobook for an immersive experience)
Rest isn’t just about recovery; it’s a prerequisite for growth and transformation. So, this January, I (ahem) “challenge” you to commit to doing absolutely nothing — or at least, to doing less. Rest is more than a means of personal renewal: It’s a collective necessity for a more compassionate and just world. Sloth has never looked so divinely ordained.
Heidi Lescanec, ND, is a licensed Naturopathic Doctor with a background in cultural anthropology on a mission to find “The Pink Zones,” a term she coined to describe the conditions and places where women thrive as they age. If you want to find and foster more Pink Zones, join her here: thepinkzones.com and @drheidilescanec.
