10/09/2026
Turns out unstructured time is uncomfortable when you've spent years being the one who runs the household's schedule. It took a few days on our month long holiday before we actually settled into doing nothing, and stopped treating it like a problem to solve.
The school term and new schools for my kids started last week and the mental list came back almost immediately, which told me something... The issue was never really the holiday. It was that I don't really give myself permission to stop the rest of the year, and neither do most of the women I work with.
There's a physiological reason this sits harder on women specifically. Under stress, the female nervous system tends toward what researchers call a tend-and-befriend response rather than the fight-or-flight pattern most stress advice is built around, meaning the stress response itself often shows up as doing more for other people, not less. Female stress physiology also involves a stronger release of corticotrophin-releasing factor, the hormone that switches the stress response on, and fewer of the receptors that switch it back off. Add a mental load that UN Women data puts at over 40% of global GDP if it were ever paid for, and "just rest more" stops being simple advice.
Most of the people I work with don't need convincing that rest matters, they need someone to tell them they're allowed to take it before their body makes the decision for them.
More on this on my Substack, link to the article in the comments 🤍
