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When I search for images of leaders, executives, bosses, and founders, the pages of results are quite dismal. I did a screenshot series back in 2021, which is still relevant today, because these images are what LLM (large language models) are learning from.

Here’s what a quick search of UnSplash ga…

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• One was breastfeeding her baby while talking about her seed funding round.

• Another was leading a 40-person company, but wondering how to keep…

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Like weeds in a hot summer …

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“Oh, you’re a writer? So you sit at a computer all day? What exactly do you do?” Goodness, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this question, and how I’ve also wanted to know just what other creatives d…

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You’ve been reaching out to me asking how …

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Sleep and rest, however, are different. While there is a lot of talk about sleep deprivation and improving overall sleep, we don’t talk enough about rest and why it’s essential for energy. Most people are woefully under-nourished when it comes to getting the rest they need.

In this article:

• The difference between sleep and rest, and why we need both — and why you might have a rest deficit.

• The seven different types of rest nearly everyone needs,

• The difference between active and passive rest.

• Specific ways to get more rest in your life, so that you feel better right away.

If you’re always tired or you’re emotionally exhausted, but sleeping more isn’t helping, then this might hold a clue to the puzzle.

What is rest?

“Rest is the energy, time, and attention you return to yourself,” Jordan Maney, a rest lab creator and radical joy coach told me. Rest is much more than sleep, Jordan explained. Rest is about longevity, resilience, and recovery.

Jordan taught a rest workshop for our women’s leadership program, and joined me to talk about what rest is, and how to build more rest into your life. Jordan’s work on rest spans burnout, ADHD, hustle culture, protecting your mental health, and when you don’t look or act the way that society expects you to act. Rest is essential for justice and equity work, she says, and it can’t be a luxury or an afterthought.

Sleep and rest are not the same thing

Jordan introduced me to the work of Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, a Board-Certified internal medicine physician who examines the reasons why people are chronically tired. Sleep and rest are not the same thing, Dr. Dalton-Smith explains. Yes, we all need quality sleep. But we also need to “replenish all the ways we become depleted," and getting more sleep does not resolve the deficits that build up across all of our rest needs.

“If your definition of rest is limited to sleeping, or binge-watching television on the couch, then you are leaving yourself open to chronic exhaustion,” Dr. Dalton-Smith says. A chronic lack of energy might not be about sleep—at all.

Rest is the space outside of sleep where we are able to refuel and recover. It is also essential for creating the deep, restorative sleep we all need. “We are missing out on the other types of rest that we need,” she says in her TEDxAtlanta talk. “The result is a culture of high-achieving, high-producing, chronically tired, burned out individuals.” To be resilient, we need plenty of down time, likely far more than we’ve been led to believe.

Dr. Dalton-Smith helps people identify their rest deficits and figure out specific ways to recharge and build back their energy stores. “Many of us are suffering from a rest deficit because we do not understand the power of rest,” she says. “Rest is the most under-used, chemical-free, safe, and effective alternative therapy available to us.” Sleeping pills won’t cut it if your energy stores are being depleted from every other waking minute. That’s because sleep alone is not enough to recharge our batteries.

So what is rest and how do we get it?

THE SEVEN TYPES OF REST YOU NEED

According to Dr. Dalton-Smith, after analyzing the ways in which people rest, she found that there are seven core types of rest that people need. Yes, we all need quality sleep. But we also need "to replenish all the ways we become depleted," says Dr. Dalton-Smith. Knowing what rest you need is about self-discovery, and identifying where your deficits are. 

These are the seven types of rest:

• Emotional Rest

• Mental Rest

• Social Rest

• Creative Rest

• Sensory Rest

• Spiritual Rest

• Physical Rest

Let’s look closer at each type of rest and how to get more of it.

EMOTIONAL REST

Being emotionally rested means being able to express your feelings and cut back on people pleasing. If you are constantly dealing with people who drain you, if you have family members that text you all the time for emotional support, of you have co-workers that rely on you for gossip and personal problem solving, chances are you might be emotionally exhausted.

To get more emotional rest, try identifying which people drain your energy, and find ways to reduce the time you spend with them. You might limit chats, work on responding only at certain times of day, or turn on the “mute” function on text threads.

Emotional rest is a practice in being more honest about what you need, setting boundaries, communicating these boundaries.

MENTAL REST

Mental rest is about being able to quiet your mind chatter and focus on what's important. If you're in your head, stirring up worries or rehearsing past conversations, you need mental rest.

Journaling, venting, mindfulness exercises, or focusing your energy on solving the stickiest hang-ups can help here. There’s a reason why labyrinths and forest walks have been known to be meditative and relaxing—it’s another way to give yourself mental rest.

While it’s unlikely that I’ll have a labyrinth close by, picking a certain route through my neighborhood that I can go on easily has a similar meditative quality to the walk. My partner and I have 15m, 20m, and 30m loops that we can do depending on the day.

Journaling can be a wonderful way to get the chatter out of your mind and onto the page – there’s a reason why hundreds of thousands of people love morning pages.

Therapy or counseling can be tremendously beneficial. While the session itself might be hard, having a place to unpack what’s stuck in my brain and causing a spin cycle of worry or pain can create a lot of mental freedom and rest down the line.

SOCIAL REST

Social rest can be more active, like taking walks with friends, or having a lovely tea and down-time with a friend. It can also be more passive. Passive social rest can include things like scrolling before bed.

Jordan says "It's fine to scroll social media if it helps you zone out, but make sure you switch to active rest too in order to fill your tank.”

You can combine social rest in the form of down time with friends. In this example, coloring with friends can be a form of social, creative, and mental rest.

Here’s an example of social rest and also physical contact, aka sensory stimulation that might create sensory rest as well. I don’t like the metaphor of killing two birds with stones, so the better metaphor might be “the longer the robin sits on the egg, the better it grows” (work in progress here).

CREATIVE REST

Creative rest is the rest that comes from being creative—making something, exploring something, building something, for example. If you need more of it in your life, things like sewing, painting, crafting, cooking, or doing puzzles can be deeply rejuvenating.

But if your job requires a large amount of creativity and building, then creative rest can also mean resting from creativity if your job requires a high demand from you.

When was the last time you laid in your bed without your phone? Turn off the phone and the work and play around a little with music, or explore dancing or bopping around to delicious music.

Hand-crafting, whether cooking or paper or something else, can be very relaxing. I’ve recently been spending more time with coloring books, and a lot of times I’ll listen to books, podcasts, or music and I love it.

SENSORY REST

Sensory rest is about reducing stimulation. That can mean turning the noise down, dimming lights in the evening, or even taking a warm bath with lavender and salt in a candle-lit room.

For me, I dim lights, play very quiet relaxing music, and sometimes wear headphones to reduce kid noise! I also love a weighted blanket in a dark room for 15 minutes.

SPIRITUAL REST

Spiritual Rest is about having a sense of belonging to something bigger than yourself. This can be faith-based, like meditation or prayer, or this can be about the groups that you belong to, from support groups to regional groups and more.

Volunteering with others, being part of an alumni group, or joining a local choir or music group can all be a form of spiritual rest. A community gathering or regular place of faith can be restorative.

PHYSICAL REST

Last but not least, there is physical rest. This is about resting our physical bodies. Passive physical rest includes sleeping and napping. Dr. Saundra Dalton calls these "cessation activities," which is where you don't physically do anything.

There is also active physical rest, which means restorative activities "that improve our circulation and lymphatic systems and help relax our muscles." This can include leisurely walks, stretching, dancing, yoga, massage therapy, and more. 

Sleep is also an important part of this mix of rest types. We definitely need sleep, and getting more sleep (and better quality sleep) is something the majority of humans need. Sleep alone, however, is not all there is to rest.

ACTIVE AND PASSIVE REST

Within each category of rest, there can be passive rest (where you don’t actually do anything, or you take a break and time away from doing something more intensive). There’s also active rest, in which you proactively do something to encourage rest—for example, getting a massage, going for a walk, actively taking steps to text friends and socialize, for example.

For me, because I work from home, I don’t always get enough in-person socialization! There is a real connection between laughing with people after work, playing games, chatting it up, and the real sense of rest and distance I get from work. I’ve noticed that sometimes, being social at the end of the day can help me better unwind and get even better sleep. For others who are extremely social or in meetings all day, the opposite might be true, with the need to take a break from social events a very real rest need.

HOW TO GET MORE REST

Identify which buckets of yours need to be filled right now

If you're overwhelmed by all the rest you might need, here's what Dr. Dalton-Smith says to do:

• First, start small, she reminds people. If you add a whole bunch to your todo list all at once, it’s not going to be helpful, it’ll just make you more exhausted.

• Rest is not about a major sabbatical or an elaborate vacation. When you start daydreaming about a major sabbatical or a huge vacation, this is a sign that you need more rest in your everyday life, and to start to implement new habits or patterns to get rest within your current situation (in possible). Plus, people are often more tired after vacation because it requires a lot of work and planning, plus you might do a whole slew of activities that don't fill up any of the rest buckets you really need—it's an adventure or a trip, not a respite.) Believe it or not, but a vacation or sleep might not actually solve the tired, but it's 95% of what's thought of as "rest."

• Start with the bucket that feels most depleted. If you feel like you’re mentally over-stimulated at work and you don’t have any creative space in your life, try unwinding at night with a coloring book for five minutes just to doodle and add a little delight back into your life.

• Rest does not need to be BIG to count. Rest is about all the little things we fill ourselves up with. Start small rather than not start at all.

What's the smallest thing that would put a drop in the rest bucket you need most?

• Three minutes of closing your eyes and doing 2x breathing?

• Five minutes of doodle-sketching while listening to beautiful music?

• A short little walk outside to look at the trees?

• Watching a comedy special to laugh more in the evenings?

• Taking an hour away from social media on your favorite day of the week—or—taking an hour specifically to text and gab with whatever friends are online?

— Sarah Peck
CEO & Founder
Startup Parent

PS: What do you do to get enough rest? Leave a note in the comments.

KEY IDEAS & TAKEAWAYS

• “Rest is about the time, energy, and attention you return to yourself,” says Jordan Maney.

• “If you are not purposefully resting, you are not building resilience in your life,” says researcher Saundra Dalton-Smith. “Just stopping is not always restorative. Sometimes something has to be done to pour back into that area where you are being depleted."

• There are seven types of rest: emotional, mental, physical, social, sensory, spiritual, and creative. You can get passive and active rest within each category.

• Getting enough rest is a profound act of resistance and rebellion—especially for Black women, people of color, and people most affected by the isms—racism, sexism, ageism, classism and other systems of oppression.

• Start small, ideally with the buckets that feel most depleted.

A FUTURE OF WORK TO BELIEVE IN

• At Startup Parent, we believe that parenting shouldn’t be at odds with work—and the insights from parenting builds you as a leader. We disrupt the myths of parenting to tell true stories of motherhood, fatherhood, and parenting today.

• The Startup Parent Podcast is an award-winning podcast ranked in the top 1% of podcasts globally. Click here to add the show to your player.

• Become a Substack paid subscriber and get access to our exclusive bonus podcast, Ask Sarah, our private member-only community threads, our book club, and more.

• If you're a working mom looking for a community that understands you, apply to join The Wise Women's Council, our leadership incubator for entrepreneurs, executives, and managers who are also moms. The program runs annually and we open for applications twice per year. Click here to apply.

When you look around at what we call work, life, and community—it's not working for most people. So many people are burned out, yet still trying to somehow do it all in their businesses and their lives as though this is the recipe for satisfaction and success.

But hustle culture and do it all culture both have a dark side that’s not often talked about—an insidious idolization of “missing sleep, meals, family, community, and anything else outside of work that might provide comfort, rest, respite, or meaning,” writes Erin Griffith for the New York Times.

Over the past few years, I’ve watched as work continues to expand scope across all facets of life, curious about who hustle culture benefits and whether or not it’s an effective strategy for individuals or teams. The benefactors of hustle culture are often an elite few—and it’s not usually the people are hustling the hardest.

A few years ago, I put together a talk on the problems of hustle culture, and a related short book on how to strategically work smarter (and work less). I’ve given this talk to retreats, team off-sites, masterminds, and leadership organizations as a way to rethink the way we rush through work and continue to try to do more.

Last month, I recorded one of the sessions I did for the B2B Writing Institute, and Sarah Greesonbach, the founder, sent me the recording to share with everyone who is a paid subscriber to this newsletter.

When you are a paid subscriber to the newsletter, you’ll not only get access to the private podcast, our advice columns, our community forums, but you’ll also occasionally get extra bonuses—like a full recordings of this talk on hustle culture and it’s downsides. If you’re on the free plan, upgrade to get access to this talk.

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A lot of work advice normalizes working overtime through side projects, side-hustles, and all-or-nothing mentalities. You don't have to go very far on the internet to find people evangelizing late-night work, weekend work, and all-hours hustle.

The problem with hustle culture is that it’s already proven to be quite toxic—and the assumptions behind hustle culture are often wrong. Humans need sleep and rest, and rest isn't something that's easy to sacrifice. The people who do boast about sacrificing sleep and rest often end up burned out or sick.

It's also not very interesting.

In grade-school, we used to play a game called "Would you rather...?" The idea is to pick between two options. In this case, would you rather work at a startup that works 80-100 hours a week, for half pay, with little organization or thoughtfulness, and leaders that don't know how to set boundaries and edges—

Or, would you rather work at a startup that sets boundaries around their most precious resource (human labor—aka time and energy), and focus on the best things to work on? Also, would you rather be paid double, because you're working half as many hours?

I think it's way more interesting and challenging to build a company that also has a humane ethos and celebrates the fullness of human life. If I had to pick between a startup that worked 100 hours a week and one that works 40 hours a week and was successful, I know exactly which one I'd pick.

I think it’s harder to build a startup on limited hours, and guess what? I like challenges.

Hustle culture asks us to push harder, work more, and “use up” all available hours we have in front of us. It tells us that we’re lazy if we’re not working until we drop, and says that it’s our individual fault if we can’t get things done.

Believe me, I love working nights and weekends. And when it’s a passion project, or an idea… it doesn’t even feel like work. Lest we be confused, I LOVE working. I don't mind hustle culture when applied appropriately. There are times and seasons to hustle. But when you do it all the time, you lose the variety of life rhythms that are essential to innovation and productivity.

Hustle is like a dial: let's say you can dial up your work energy between level one and six. Your goal is not to drive at level six 100% of the time. You will operate most effectively if you have a mix of level three and four, with sufficient time at level one, and occasional bursts at level six.

I'm not saying you should never hustle—I'm saying that hustle when done at all costs and all times, doesn’t work.

Hustle as a way of being is just a fast-track to burnout. The people who benefit from burned-out employees are the ones who don’t mind cycling through and hiring lots of new people to replace you.

When I became a parent, it became so clear how toxic the hustle noise is. As a caretaker, your time freedom completely disappears. That’s why so many parents today are being vocal about normalizing reduced work hours & escaping the lazy side of the hustle mindset. Especially as Millennial and Gen Z men think about becoming fathers, many of them are focused on doing work and family life differently—they don’t want to be absent fathers. They want to be equal parents.

Jay Acunzo, a brilliant creator and storyteller who is also the parent to two young kids, told me that as both his work and parenting challenges increase, he now searches for people who have stronger boundaries around when work gets done.

“I used to tinker on my side projects at night,” he said, “and the weekend? I could do SO MUCH with a weekend.” Now that he has an almost one-year old and a three year old, that space is just not available anymore. Did that stop him from working on projects? Not at all. But it did shed light on how much work culture defaults to assuming people will work nights, weekends, and any other time we have available.

Work wants all the time you can give it, and then some.

Startup culture has become synonymous with "hustle culture," but that's become an ill-defined excuse to work all hours without any limits.

“I used to endorse hustle culture,” Alexis Grant, the founder of They Got Acquired shared, “Until I became a parent and learned that working parents don’t have time for side projects.” Instead of running yourself into the ground trying to keep up with everyone else, parents can remember that they already are hustling—they are keeping children alive and healthy 100+ hours week over week.

“I used to endorse this—long work hours—until I became a parent and learned that working parents don’t have time for side projects.” — Alexis Grant, founder of They Got Acquired & four-time member of The Wise Women's Council

“When someone says they operate like a startup, often they mean they’re working all out, putting in lots of hours,” she says about our assumptions of what “startup culture” is supposed to look like.

“But it can also mean operating lean and scrappy, strategically working to gain customers and revenue, [and] prioritizing shipping over perfect.” Building a big company on fewer hours means being even more lean and focused, and it’s a skill that parents are well-equipped to learn.

Operating like a startup can also mean being lean and scrappy, and being very intentional about what you're building on limited resources. One of those limited resources might be the number of hours you have to put towards the startup.

Grant has been really vocal lately about the ways that hustle culture doesn’t work for parents. She’s been a client of mine, and has been in the Wise Women’s Council for four years now, so we’ve talked about this A LOT together. (Also, Startup Parent is a sponsor of her podcast—we’ve been supporting each other for years, and her new media company is all about building companies that sell, but aren't traditionally covered in the media.)

“You don’t have to work yourself into the ground to build a successful company,” — Alexis Grant, founder of They Got Acquired

She speaks up about the reality of being a working parent, talking openly about the limited time hours and focusing on what can be built instead.

Startups are about building new visions, new ideas, and new projects. They can also be about doing things in new ways—including building successful companies on fewer hours and dollars.

Today, Grant is working on a new media company focused on businesses that aren’t often seen in the media—companies that grow well, that make big revenue, but aren’t necessarily the glamorized unicorn tech companies that get almost all of the media coverage.

They Got Acquired is redefining startup success by telling the stories of online companies that sell between $100K-$50M. How she does it is just as important as why she’s doing it: “I’m building this startup on 30 hours a week, and I pick up my kids up from school at 3pm three days a week,” she says.

Not every company needs multi-million dollar rounds and thousands of employees to get to work. Not every company has to be venture backed. And not every company needs to embrace the toxic side of hustle culture that grinds its employees into the ground.

Being a parent doesn’t mean you can’t get things done. It means you get things done differently.

It might not feel like it, but today's parents are on the leading edge of redefining what work culture looks like, because kids are a forcing function. They limit your hours and ask you to think differently about how work and life fit together.

• Work culture IS changing, and the more vocal parents are about ending workdays at reasonable hours, the more we can keep this change coming.

• Normalize flexible work, reduced hours, and the idea that big thinking can still happen with tiny teams or fewer hours.

• Ignore how fast everyone else is moving, and ignore most of the startup-hustle mania that saturates the news.

Remember: It doesn’t matter how "fast" you move. A lot of companies out there are spinning their wheels and look busy, but they aren't doing the work that matters. If you’re putting one step in front of the other, your revenue is solid, and you’re growing a building a little bit each day, you’re doing it.

Onwards and sideways—kids, interruptions, sick days, and all.

— Sarah Peck
CEO & Founder
Startup Parent

A FUTURE OF WORK TO BELIEVE IN:

• At Startup Parent, we believe that parenting shouldn’t be at odds with work—and the insights from your parenting journey propels you as a leader that this world needs. We disrupt the myths of parenting to tell true stories of motherhood, fatherhood, and parenting today.

• The Startup Parent Podcast is an award-winning podcast ranked in the top 1% of podcasts globally. Join us as we interview parents about what the future of work, life, and leadership look like. Click here to add the show to your player.

• If you're a working mom looking for a community that understands you, apply to join The Wise Women's Council, our leadership incubator for entrepreneurs, executives, and managers who are also moms. The program runs annually and we open for applications twice per year. Click here to apply.