Healing Through Rest: Embracing Self-Care Instead of Self-Medication

“Tell me about your sleep. What’s it like?” I asked my new client Alexis, a mom of two school-age children.

“I try to have a consistent sleep schedule,” she sighed. “I do okay for the most part. But there’s always something I have to do last minute before bed, like making sure my kids’ uniforms are in the laundry room and not in a pile on their floor. When I do sleep, I guess it’s fine. But I don’t know if I really feel rested. It’s like my brain is always awake.”

“What do you do for rest or self-care?” I asked.

“I mean, I get a pedicure like once a month or so,” she said

“Do you make time for stillness or meditation, that kind of thing?” I asked.

She laughed. “If I get too still, I’ll probably fall asleep. I need to stay in motion, or it’ll all fall apart.”

I nodded, wondering how to gently phrase my next comment. “Well, it makes me wonder if part of the reason your body is screaming at you for attention is because it’s not getting the rest it needs. The things that work for us to manage stress work well . . . until they don’t. Sometimes we need new solutions.”

“I get that,” she sighed. “And I feel that in my whole body, but it’s so hard to stay afloat right now. There’s always something else I need to deal with.”

Do you ever feel like Alexis does? There’s always something else. Right when you think you can take two steps forward in one life season, you’re taking one step back because another season brings unexpected changes. Then when you think you’re in the clear, managing this season well, there’s another mini-emergency. Or an alert. Or something urgent that must be attended to. It leaves you with a “wired but tired” feeling that many in our culture have come to view as normal.

When you’re doing everything for everyone else and have very little time to manage your own rest and relaxation practices, burnout will inevitably follow. And when you’re burned out, rest becomes reactionary (a state your nervous system forces you into) rather than responsive (a state you choose when you know you’re starting to feel slightly overwhelmed). That’s when finding restful sleep starts to feel like entering an obstacle course every night when you get into bed. To support your body’s unique need for rest, you first must establish an intentional self-care practice.

What’s the first image that pops into your mind when you hear the term self-care? If it’s something like getting your nails done or having a spa day, you’re not alone. That’s what Alexis thought too! While there’s nothing wrong with either of those, they aren’t what I mean when I talk about the importance of self-care. Self-care is the practice of acknowledging your need for rest and doing whatever you can to make time for it. It is choosing purposeful activities to meet the need for rest and balance in your body, mind, and spirit.

Self-care springs from self-awareness. For me, that means knowing my limits and putting protections in place so I don’t ever exceed full capacity. When I exceed my capacity, I crash. So it’s important for me to make time in my week for stillness and to avoid overscheduling my weekends. That ensures that I have “breathing room” to replenish myself no matter how busy my week gets or how my responsibilities shift.

Although we tend to think of self-care as a modern indulgence, it’s actually an ancient practice—and a biblical one. The biblical foundation is in the principles of stewardship and discernment. Your body is God’s gift to you, and taking time to care for your physical needs is being a good steward of what you’ve been given. Self-care also involves partnering with the Holy Spirit in discernment to know your body’s limits. Discernment is what helps you know it’s time to take a break. And can you guess who in the Bible modeled this well? Jesus himself.

There are multiple examples in Scripture of Jesus making time for intentional rest. He took breaks to recharge and withdrew “to desolate places and pray” (Luke 5:16). After the disciples returned from a busy ministry mission, Jesus instructed them to find a quiet place and rest awhile (Mark 6:30-31). When Jesus visited with Mary and Martha, Martha was caught up in rushing and doing, distracted by her service; but Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to him. When Martha complained to Jesus about her sister, Jesus responded, “Martha, Martha, . . . you are worried and upset about many things, but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:41-42, niv). In both his life and his teaching, Jesus affirmed the importance of intentional rest and quiet.

The danger in not making time for restorative self-care is that burnout and exhaustion can often lead to self-medication. Self-medication is the opposite of self-care. It happens when you decide not to listen to the still small voice reminding you to slow down and instead listen to the voice of productivity telling you to keep going because people are depending on you. Then you make a crash landing on the couch, where you spend the remaining hours of the day mindlessly scrolling through social media or binge-watching shows on a streaming service. While self-care allows you to partner with your body for rest, self-medication requires you to separate yourself from your body and check out. If you’re wondering how to determine whether an activity is self-care or self-medication, the best way I know how to distinguish them is this: Self-care is proactive, and self-medication is reactive. In other words, self-care helps you attune to your need for rest, and self-medication cuts you off from your deepest needs.

While self-medication often makes people think of substance abuse, the kind of reactionary self-medication I’m talking about can also happen from neutral or even seemingly positive behaviors. It might be saying yes to every volunteer opportunity—even though you’re exhausted—because you have a desire to feel needed and appreciated. It might look like shopping as a distraction, or bingeing Netflix until hours past your bedtime. It could be eating half a bag of chips before you realize what you’re even doing or how you got to the pantry. Self-medication comes from a natural desire to fill up when you’re depleted, except you’re filling up on the things that leave you empty.

If you’re a chronic overscheduler and to-do list maker, the idea that you need to prioritize rest and self-care may be hard to hear, but think of it this way: Establishing a regular practice of rest makes you more efficient with the other tasks you need to do. Not only that, but doing all you need to do from a place of rest rather than exhaustion creates more intention and purpose than running on autopilot, which is a precursor to burnout. It’s a crucial component of healing.

Adapted from Live Beyond Your Label: A Holistic Approach to Breaking Old Patterns and Rediscovering a Healthier You in Mind, Body, and Spirit by Erin Kerry (© 2025). Published by Tyndale Refresh. Used by permission.

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