Why rest helps one person and not another
Written by drs. Pauline Bos
Psychologist NIP and educational psychologist, Amsterdam city centre
The usual prescription for long term overload is rest, gradual build up and learning to set boundaries. For many people that works well. But there is a group for whom it does not, or for whom the symptoms return as soon as the pressure rises again. I do not know whether that has the same cause for everyone. What I do see in my practice is a pattern that keeps coming back.
Two routes that look the same from the outside
The first route is the familiar one: too much for too long, too little recovery, and at some point the lights go out. Rest and a phased build up are exactly what is needed then.
The second route looks the same from the outside but starts somewhere else. Here the overload seems more a consequence than a cause. Someone works that hard because standing still brings up something they would rather not feel. Or because a conclusion was drawn at some point that says: if I do not perform, I am worth nothing.
For that second group rest is often not enough. Sometimes rest even makes it heavier, because precisely the thing the hard work was solving comes to the surface. That does not mean there is always something from the past underneath. It does mean that resting alone is rarely the whole answer then.
What you see in the consulting room
People who are still not improving after three months of rest. People who feel guilty the moment they do nothing. People who relapse within a year of a successful return to work.
In the intake something often surfaces that at first sight has nothing to do with work: a seriously ill family member in childhood, a parent who was only satisfied with top marks, a period of bullying, a loss that was never given room.
That connection is rarely conscious. Almost nobody arrives asking whether their burnout has something to do with the past.
What can help instead
It usually starts with understanding why standing still is so hard. Which belief sits underneath? What exactly happens the moment you do nothing?
Sometimes that belief formed in a particular period or through particular experiences. In that case EMDR can fit, because it can reduce the emotional charge of such an experience. If the conclusion "I may only stop when it is finished" weighs less, resting becomes easier.
And sometimes there is no experience underneath, but a way of thinking you learned over the years. Then we work on that directly, with conversations and exercises.
What you need before you start
The order matters here. Processing takes energy, and if you do not have it, diving straight in is unwise. I first look at how much room there is, and sometimes we start with a few weeks of build up.
What I do not do is wait until you have fully recovered. That would skip exactly the part that can explain why it did not work before.
drs. Pauline Bos
Psychologist NIP and educational psychologist, Amsterdam city centre
More than 25 years with people, behaviour and the stories people have come to believe about themselves.