Why you find is to hard to relax

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:04]If you're a high achiever, chances are you hate the feeling of being unproductive. Maybe rest makes you feel uncomfortable, even at the weekends, even when you're on holiday. So, if sitting down to relax makes you feel anxious, makes you feel squirmy, this video is for you because I see this every day in my coaching clients. People who feel guilty about resting and relaxing and taking the time that they desperately need to recharge from their busy lives. So, in this video, here is everything that we're going to be covering. I've made it all into chapters down below for you. If we haven't met before, I'm Dr. Sarah. I'm a burnout coach. I'm the founder of The Thriving Medics Club, which is a membership for healthcare professionals who want to get out of burnout and get their sparkle back. And if you're interested in joining, I'll leave the details for you down below. So, let me set the scene for you and see if this sounds familiar to you. You've had a really busy week at work. You're making your way home and you cannot stop thinking about it.

[00:00:52]You're replaying conversations. You're winding yourself up about the week again. Can't seem to switch off. You get home from work and the first thing you do is you vent to your partner or your housemate or your friends or family. And once again, you're reliving your work day. You tell yourself that you really need to switch off, so you doom scroll or you reach for that glass of wine or you binge watch a Netflix series, doing anything you can to distract yourself from work. But when you get into bed, you struggle to get to sleep. And the first thing you do in the morning is check your work emails or your work messages and immediately get yourself back into work mode. When the weekend comes around and you have some downtime, you struggle to actually relax. You feel exhausted, but there's so much to do.

[00:01:31]There's no way you can sit down and watch a film when there's housework to do, there's errands to run, there's a pile of paperwork that you've been meaning to sort out. Not to mention your emails and your WhatsApp. And maybe add studying or kids or caregiving to the mix and poof, all of your relaxation time goes out the window. You just cannot seem to give yourself that time to sit and relax guilt-free. I remember this feeling so clearly when I was headed towards burnout, when I was a newly qualified doctor. I had a particular week where I was scheduled to work six days out of seven, and on my one day off, I remember being so tired.

[00:02:05]And it was a beautiful sunny day, and I thought to myself, "I'm going to go and sit in the garden and actually enjoy the sunshine because, you know, in the hospital, I never get to see the blue skies and the sunshine." So, I took myself out there. I sat down on one of our garden chairs, and within about 2 minutes, I started to feel really restless and guilty. I was thinking, "Shouldn't I be doing something useful?

[00:02:26]But can I really sit down here for this long? I feel guilty for some reason.

[00:02:29]Maybe I'll do a load of laundry and then I can relax after that. Or maybe I shouldn't be sitting here doing nothing.

[00:02:33]Maybe I should be sitting here and doing some studying, doing some journaling, doing some reading." And then I started to question whether something was wrong with me because I just couldn't seem to get myself to actually enjoy relaxing.

[00:02:45]Same thing happened whenever we went away on holiday when I was in that phase of my life. I just couldn't seem to unwind. I was like a tightly coiled spring, always ready to go, go, go. And like I needed to be doing something. So, why is this? Well, one of the reasons that high achievers struggle to relax and unwind guilt-free is that your nervous system gets used to being on constant activation mode. Deadlines, responsibilities, pressure, we're always used to being on the go, being needed, being wanted. Your brain and body are used to being on high alert. Your sympathetic nervous system, which is your fight or flight system, is what's responsible for this. That gets activated when our brains think that we're in some level of danger. So, it prepares us. It gives us this feeling of readiness. But when you're in that state long-term, and you finally do go and sit down to relax, your brain isn't quite on board with the relaxation. And your brain doesn't interpret that as time to rest. Your brain interprets that as something must be wrong. So, why does this happen? Why do we get ourselves into this state of feeling like we have to be on all the time? And what can we do about it? Well, here's the thing about high achievers, and I see this all the time in my coaching clients. High achievers are often conscientious people. They are not afraid of hard work. They are the kind of people that will tackle any big task and get it done. High achievers have high intrinsic motivation which means that they are driven from within themselves. They've got this feeling of wanting to achieve things. High achievers are also goal orientated. They really want to get to that thing. They want to reach their own goals and do the things that they've said they'll do. And high achievers are often highly focused on their work and their identity is often built around their work and their achievements.

[00:04:27]Working hard, being responsible, and these can all be really positive things.

[00:04:32]However, our brains can interpret that message as my value comes from what I produce. My value is based on my levels of productivity, which means when you're resting, your brain is telling you something is wrong. High achievers can also have a tendency towards perfectionism. And that can mean that they're really hard on themselves. So, maybe you can relate to that. And this is what I see a lot in my health care coaching clients. These are people who are hugely intelligent, capable, caring, and hard working. And whilst those traits are absolutely fabulous and mean that they make amazing health care professionals, they do such great work.

[00:05:07]Flip side is that they get burnt out because they push themselves beyond their limits and they struggle to give themselves permission to rest and relax and recharge from their busy weeks. And working in a system like health care that is often overstretched, there's always more to do. This is a recipe for burnout. And if you're somebody who over identifies with your work, your work becomes a huge part of your identity, that can make it really hard for you to switch off and relax guilt-free.

[00:05:33]Evidence shows that you're more at risk of burnout if you don't have intentional time where you have a clear separation between work and your home life. So, you might be thinking, "Okay, that's all great. I understand now why I can't actually relax and switch off, but how do I actually do it? How do I give myself that guilt-free relaxation? This is a great moment to tell you about my program Off-Duty, which I'll link down below for you. This is a five-part video series mini course, which I've created to help you to switch off from work and actually be able to enjoy your free time again. So, if you are that kind of person who finds that the weekend just disappears and you don't feel like you've actually had any downtime, or you spend all of your free time doing chores and being busy, and you feel more tired when you go back to work on a Monday than you did when you left on Friday, this program is for you. It's going to help you to be able to claim back your time and start feeling refreshed and energized again. I've linked it down below with a massive discount for you to say thank you for supporting me on this YouTube channel. Can see Tilly looking out the window there. Are you okay there, Tilly? And all of the lessons in these trainings are really short and punchy so that you can binge watch them in a couple of hours and actually start implementing them straight away so that the next time you have a weekend or some days off work, you're going to feel so much better. So, in those trainings I'm going to a lot more detail about how to actually reclaim that time off work, but just to help you to get that guilt-free relaxation, here are a few key pointers.

[00:06:56]Number one is scheduling in downtime and fun. If you're the kind of person who tells yourself, "I will relax when or I will have time to do fun things when I've done all of these things and I've finished my to-do list and I've been productive enough," then that downtime will never happen and those fun experiences just will slip through your fingers and another week will go by without you having had any time for fun and relaxation. So, it's really important to schedule those things in, give yourself a few hours where you're going to intentionally relax and allow yourself to switch off and enjoy that time. Number two is reframing how you think about your downtime. If you're beating yourself up constantly and telling yourself that you're being unproductive or lazy, you're never going to really enjoy your downtime. Even if you're going through the motions of doing a fun activity or relaxing and watching a film, but you're feeling guilty about it and beating yourself up.

[00:07:50]That's not enjoyable. So, instead, start telling yourself that relaxation is necessary, and rather than thinking of it as time where you're unproductive, try telling yourself that this is an opportunity to recharge your batteries, and that you're going to have so much more energy when you've given yourself that guilt-free relaxation. Number three is starting to listen to your body more.

[00:08:11]One thing about high achievers is that you can push through. You can push through discomfort and keep going beyond your limits, but that can lead to burnout. So, try taking some intentional time on your off time to tune into your mind and body. Ask yourself how you're feeling and what you need right now.

[00:08:25]Listen to those cues from your body that maybe you're exhausted and you need to relax, or maybe you've got a feeling of wanting to socialize or wanting to do something fun. Start tuning into how you're actually feeling and what you want. A big part of burnout recovery is tuning back into your mind and body and listening to those cues that your body is sending you. Number four, now this is an easy one to say, but more difficult to do, uncoupling your worth from your productivity. Your value is not tied to how much you can do or how productive you can be. You are allowed to just rest and relax and enjoy life. And when I think about this one, I often think about my dog, Tilly, who's right behind me there. I look at her and I think, you know, I I don't love her because of how productive she can be, or I don't, you know, if I see her sleeping on the sofa, I don't think, "Oh, she's being unproductive and lazy." But, those are the kinds of things that we tell ourselves. But, our worth isn't tied to our productivity, and we are allowed to just relax and enjoy life. Number five is engaging in fun relaxation. Doing active things, getting outside, doing things like going out for a hike or a bike ride, or going and joining a pottery class, or doing something else that is engaging your brain and your body in a very different way from your work. Our brains are recharged by having novel experiences. And number six is to remember that if you're not used to relaxing, start small. Try just giving yourself 10 minutes to sit in peace and enjoy your morning coffee or take yourself on a short walk without your phone, without having to listen to a podcast or an audiobook. Just enjoy being. What we're doing is trying to retrain our brain to learn that rest is safe and nothing bad's going to happen if we give ourselves some time to relax.

[00:10:05]So, I hope you've enjoyed this video and I would love to hear from you in the comments. If you've got anything to add to this discussion, I think it would be really helpful for other people to be able to read the best ways that you have found to give yourself guilt-free relaxation. And don't forget you can get my Off-Duty program massively discounted in the description box below. And if you've enjoyed this video, click the thumbs up button and you're going to enjoy this video right here where I share with you some ideas of how to structure your weekend so that you actually recharge. And this is all evidence-based. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one. Bye.