S3E10 - Rest as rebelllion: a solo reflection on how rest is an act of resistance

In this episode, Ksenia is diving deeper into the idea that rest is an act of rebellion. 

We've all been there: the pressure to constantly hustle, especially in fields like academia and other demanding careers, can be overwhelming. But what if slowing down and prioritising rest wasn't a sign of weakness, but a powerful act of resistance against a system that glorifies burnout?

Ksenia shares bits of her personal journey and observations from her time in academia, as well as:

• Why true resilience isn’t found in endless work, but in the courage to step back and restore your energy.
• How modelling healthy work habits can create a ripple effect for friends, colleagues and future generations.
• Practical, small ways to start rebelling with rest today.

Whether you're a student, a researcher, a parent, a mentor, or navigating a demanding job, this episode is a call to action. Let’s redefine what it means to be dedicated and successful by putting our well-being first.

Resources:

• Leave Your Work at Work Mini-Bundle: This resource helps you tackle "rest guilt" with a private audio training and a 10-minute meditation. You can get it here: subscribepage.io/leaveworkatworktraining
• Recharge and Restore: A brief PDF guide to stretches and movements you can do right at your desk to help your body (and mind!) feel more relaxed. Find it here: subscribepage.io/c1w1x6

Don't forget to like, follow, and share our podcast! We'd love to hear your thoughts and questions, and if you have ideas for future episodes, drop us a line.

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Ksenia's Instagram: shantiscience_yoga

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:05

Hi, and welcome to this next episode of Mom's Maths and Manuscripts. Today is an episode that was just escaping from me all the way up until now. I was going to record it still from home, but life corrected my plans, so I have to record it while on vacation, being stuck in our hotel room. But on we go, let's say it is a little bit contradicting the topic of today's conversation, but let's say this is my creative outlook. This is a way for me to get some creative rest. So I find that I do enjoy it after all. So I wanted to continue the conversation that we started in the previous episode. We talked about rest as a practice of self-care, practice of self-love, rest as slowing down and finding courage to do so in a world that is very fast-paced and a glorified moving at a fast pace. And today I wanted to talk more about how rest can be an act of resistance, an act of rebellion, and how it is obviously important as your own practice of self-care. It is obviously potentially having drastic consequences on you and then in turn on your loved ones, on your family, your children, whoever. But it's also... very important i think the the way we rest and the way we show up if and when we're fully properly recharged the way we show up in work the way we show up in relationships the way we show up in friendships uh can be having a very important ripple effect to the society in general through our colleagues to our friends through the wider audience in our wider circle so act of resistance right especially i think it's important in academia where hustle is glorified and it's very difficult to actually put some boundaries and actually choose the way you're working and choose maybe doing less and pushing less for the sake of your health both physical and mental because you are going or you will think that you're going to be seen as an outlier as a weird one as maybe not so dedicated one and there's a lot of at least from my experience there's a lot of peer pressure because you kind of don't see those people in my experience experience in my years in academia i can maybe count three four people who are truly modeling good i don't want to use the word work-life balance but let's say work-life harmony they were pushing when it was necessary but then they were pulling back when they when it was necessary and in general they were working in a very harmonious ways they didn't abandon their hobbies they didn't abandon their friends things that they love doing and they found this beautiful harmony in a way that works for them personally and they did model it to others but I can really honestly count maybe three four people like that in general you have a collective that is really struggling with rest and that is choosing and working in a way that is not exactly sustainable for a long-term career so that's why we see so much burnout that's why we see so much struggle with mental health with anxiety with depression and there is obviously other you know caveats other points to that like issues with funding issues with um supervision and mentorship and it's a whole host of problems but i do believe that we also have our personal responsibility in it and especially in the amount of burnout that is happening it's not just the culture but it's also people in the culture and we influence together you know people are forming the culture and then culture is obviously also making people conform to it to some extent so where it comes to our personal responsibility we should be choosing and thinking how can we do things differently for ourselves and also for the wider collective for our colleagues for those who are going to come after us for people who are in academia right now we are probably training some students or you have trained them across your years in PhD or postdoc what did you teach them you know what kind of work and habits and productivity mindset did you did you give them did you pass on to them I mean in general nowadays I feel like we have a very hustle glorifying culture even in wellness in kind of holistic health oriented spaces where I am in right now people talk so much about optimizing everything optimizing your movement and making every minute and every action count and you have to be productive and you have to do this this this and that and there's a whole checklist of things and It's a very rigid, very strict approach even to this. And in a way, let's say you move because you need to burn calories or because you need to build muscle and not because you enjoy movement and not because it makes you feel good. So I feel like this kind of very productivity and optimization-oriented approach is still very in line with the hustle culture and not in line with the more... how can we find more joy in life approach and so even wellness even health spaces suffer from the same issue and you know when we're talking about corporate environments when we're talking about industry when we're talking about academia it's even more of a problem and then there is also obviously a personal level we as I said we fear that we will be misjudged we fear that we will be seen as less dedicated we fear that it might you know if we choose to work differently, if we choose a more sustainable approach to our productivity and our work-life harmony, what does it say about us? Does it say that we are indeed not so passionate about what we do? Does it say that we are indeed not so dedicated, that we don't really want to achieve anything? Which is obviously BS, but there might be some fears and some thoughts like that coming up. And of course, that was the case for me as well. I was also thinking that if, you know, if I'm, I know that I'm dedicated, I know that I'm passionate, so I have to kind of outwardly show it by working too much, by working on the weekend, by showing up constantly. If I wasn't really doing anything, I would just show up and be there just because, you know, people have to see that I'm doing something, which is ridiculous and not worth it. Telling you this from the other side of burnout. So as I already mentioned I've only seen very few people in my whole experience in academia that could model and inspire this healthier approach, this more sustainable approach. I was always kind of admiring them. I still do. I still remember these people and I'm still like, wow, they did it. They managed. They put boundaries. They... knew themselves i guess very well they knew what was important for them they were very self-aware and they i guess had enough discipline also to not fall for the peer pressure and to not fall into this unhealthy habits of overwork and whatever unless it was needed for a short period of time for a short burst short push towards a deadline for example and they I can say that they enjoyed their work and I can say that these people also finished, still satisfied and still engaged and enjoying their science and didn't want to just escape from science or from academia and just run away as far as possible, as fast as possible. So honestly, very rare. I can remember maybe... maximum five people like that and it's impressive i was in different countries in different labs in different places and all over all those years just five people yeah that's a little bit sad so i think this is for the people that are currently in in master's degrees and phd maybe even postdocs if you don't want to escape i don't want to use the word escape if you don't want to leave science if you want to stay if you want to have your own lab for example in the future and you want to train the future generations then it's especially important that you you figure it out for yourself and then resist rebel with with rest and with yeah the Being different, approaching your work and approaching work-life balance, again, that dreaded word, differently. I also think about it a lot when it comes to my son because... I mean, I'm not training any future generations of scientists, but I have a child. So I do think about it often how I want to show up for him and how I want to teach him that rest is not lazy. Rest is not something that you occasionally indulge in after everything else is just perfectly done. And I want him to know that he can choose his approach. He can choose the work that he's passionate about. He can pivot when necessary. He's not a tree. He doesn't have to be staying in the ground where he was planted. Even if he's suffering there and the conditions are not good for his growth, he can move. And I want him to know all these things that maybe were not exactly... told to me by my parents or maybe, you know, my generation, their parents are of the opinion that, yeah, often of the opinion that you just get into the workforce and just work, work, work, work, work in the same place, preferably. You're never fired. You never quit the job and you never show any weakness. You never show that you're a human who sometimes needs holidays or weekends or time off.

UNKNOWN: 10:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:45

And I don't want to pass this on, pass this forward to my son or any future children. I want him to know that there is a different way and his health, his joy in life should come first. Obviously, we kind of need to earn money for our living and all that. But in the end, I don't want him to think about that. Sacrificing everything including his health including his relationships or for this sole purpose and okay let's not even talk about money but sometimes in science you would think about that or in in this careers where you're supposed to be very passionate very like maybe medicine maybe sometimes some arts you have you are so passionate this is your this is your calling this is your life's work so just put everything on that altar sacrifice everything sometimes Obviously, there are some people that are happy with that. And that's it for them. That's the best way to live their life. But not for all of us. And we cannot expect all of us and each other to do that. And I feel like in science and academia, it is often expected from you. Which is... putting a lot of pressure on you. And then, yeah, if you are thinking that, actually, I don't want to do that, you're starting to think that you're a little bit different, you're an outlier, maybe that means something about you. Again, coming back, this is BS. It doesn't mean anything about your passion. It doesn't mean anything about your dedication, about your love for science. Only you know how passionate you are, how you are truly feeling about it. And all the outside noise is, Just noise. And I also think that resting well, resting properly, being able to truly disconnect from work, being able to truly recharge your batteries before you come back to work fully ready, fully recharged, fully restored and ready to tackle all the questions that you have, all the work that you have. It is a way for us, for ourselves to learn and also for us to teach future generations to to be truly resilient and to lead ourselves through challenges instead of just being stuck in a survival mode, instead of being pressured and like succumbing to the pressure to just work, work, work, work, work, work without any... any time to kind of pull back a little bit and think even sometimes like sometimes I know for myself that sometimes things would happen there would be a mistake or something didn't work and in an experiment let's say and I would be very tempted to just immediately jump into repeating the same experiment or doing something to try to fix the issue doing something to try to troubleshoot doing something to try to repeat it and see what what happened immediately even if it was like 10 p.m and I was still stuck in the lab but sometimes the best thing you can do is kind of sleep on it and you are going to give yourself space away from it to recharge you're going to give yourself space to to start thinking clearly you're going to give yourself some idle time for your brain to maybe come up with a different solution maybe come up with a different explanation maybe come up with a creative idea which you cannot do if you're just doing all the time so it is a way that we can foster in ourselves a real resilience in face of challenges and Self-leadership. So ability to guide ourselves through these issues, which are plenty in research, obviously. When we're studying something novel, there will be moments when you are failing, when experiments are not working and we don't know what's going on because you just don't know anything about this question. It's all new. And it does take a strong self-leadership and a strong resilience to go through that. And we have to acquire it. But I do think that, like, I see very often that people do get there eventually by the end of their PhD or maybe even by the end of the first postdoc. But it does take a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. And I do think that there should be a different way. And, you know, obviously it's good if this kind of conversations on harmony between your work and your life, on resting, on taking proper breaks scheduling properly boundaries if these conversations occur in a context of your PhD program or in the context of your education that's beautiful that's amazing way to go but we all know that that's not happening very often like we did have in my PhD program we did have some conversations about that but I remember that actually the person who led these conversations kind of loved in our faces at the word work-life balance and said yeah you know I love my work it's part of my life so how can I divide these things you know and it felt very much like I understand what this person meant but it felt very much like you know don't expect that you're going to have any balance and don't expect that you're going to be allowed to not have your work bleeding through into every crevice of your life And every minute of your life, maybe even. Which is not how we should be working, because we... I feel like that's a straight road to burning out eventually, you know, we have to have some separation, we have to have some division. And obviously, you know, boundaries and confidence to set and stick to your boundaries are very important, but in this case, especially, but you cannot really have this confidence and this self-belief and the ability to put boundaries in place and actually stick to them, I actually follow through if you're coming from a place of depletion. If you are just completely exhausted, your nervous system, your body is just not going to do it because you will be just like, I don't want to have any conflict. I don't want to have any weird glances, any supervisor looking at me weirdly for living on time for once instead of 10 p.m., So I'm just going to continue working as I always work. I'm just going to continue abandoning myself. It's in a way easier. It feels safer, especially if you're already depleted, especially if you're already exhausted. And this is perpetuating the cycle in ourselves and then also in others because then we don't see examples of people working differently yeah okay here we go a lot of thoughts not very organized but I also wanted to touch upon some practical ways that we can rebel we can resist through rest and I think one way is conversations I love the fact that there is a lot of conversation about mental health and academia there's a lot of studies and being done on this a lot of surveys things are being published we talk about it finally it's not a taboo topic anymore it's not like oh I heard that there was somebody who went on sick leave because they were very stressed it's you see this probably you probably either have done this yourself or you know some people who have you know some people who quit and it's no longer such a such a weird thing you know, like some urban mysteries, some stories that we whisper to each other from time to time. But then I think that also, yeah, the conversations about rest, about boundaries, about working certain number of hours instead of turning your 40-hour contractual work week into 85-hour non-contractual work week. These conversations need to happen. We need to normalize that at least through talking to each other about it, at least through discussing it, at least through asking our maybe managers, our supervisors, how can we do that better? How can we... figure out a way so that we can actually put this boundary so that we can actually work in this way instead of stretching our work into an 80-hour work week. Maybe boundaries immediately, especially as I said, especially if you're exhausted, are not going to happen. But there are micro boundaries. There are some small, tiny ways that you can start familiarizing yourself with putting boundaries and familiarizing yourself with this icky feeling of like, oh, I'm doing something against the grain. I'm doing something against the system. Maybe you leave work if 15 minutes earlier. Maybe you take a proper lunch instead of just munching on something at your desk staring at your computer. you take a proper break, you get out of the lab, you get out of the office and you go move. You go take a walk around your institute or your university. It can be really, it can be very small. It can be 10-15 minutes. And if you've never done that, if you've never rested throughout your workday like that, it can feel weird and it can feel revolutionary because you'll be like, wow, it's actually, Easy. It's not that bad. It doesn't feel that bad, right? So very small boundaries, you know, maybe leaving a little bit earlier, maybe coming a little bit later, maybe, you know, just one day a week that you don't come to the lab. If you are somebody who works weekends as well often, or you shut your laptop for the day and you leave it somewhere, you don't, maybe you take it home, but if it's not very safe in your workplace, that can happen. Maybe you take it home, but you don't open it, you know, maybe you have boundaries like There's no work emails or Slack or whatever it is. There's no messages from work on your phone so that you're not tempted to just be constantly checking what is going on at work at like 11 p.m. Obviously, you know, not everything is going to work for you, but pick and choose what works for your schedule, what works for your level of responsibility and what works for the state of your nervous system right now. You know, if you're completely freaking out at the thought of not having your emails on your phone, don't do it. Maybe it's your next step. And finally, I think another important small way that you can resist is some white space that is already built into your calendar. You know, if you're somebody who has calendar accessible for your, let's say you're a mentor and you have students that can kind of book meetings with you. Maybe you have some time in your day where there's no meetings, nothing can be happening. You know, nobody can come to your office. Nobody can knock on your door. Nobody can schedule anything in this time. And again, it can be very small at first. You can schedule just 15 minutes, a buffer. And in this 15 minutes, you can stare out the window. maybe do something better maybe go for a walk maybe take a calmer coffee maybe I don't know maybe even move a little bit do some yoga do some breath work whoa I have some ideas for you if you want to move and get your body a little bit more agile a little bit more soft and relaxed but this white space is yours you know this is something that you are not using to catch up on more work you are not using to catch up on some reading. You're not using to go and talk to somebody over coffee about work. This is for you to breathe, relax, do something unrelated. And again, you know, 15 minutes seems like too much and too scary. Do five minutes. Maybe do five minutes twice a day. You know, once in the morning, once in the afternoon. But schedule so that it is in your calendar, in your planner, and you know it's there and stick to it. And this is... difficult I know that very well I know that for me it's very difficult to respect that as well if I schedule white space into my calendar the temptation is super high to just continue working on what I was working on before or okay I can tick off some tiny item of my to-do list or you know if I work from home I can go and unload the dish for sure or something but if I do have this time this uninterrupted time that I'm working which is very rare nowadays but Sometimes it happens. If I do have this time and I can schedule a little bit, like even five minutes of white space, I try my hardest to respect it and not let any work bleed through into this white space. So cure tree, micro ideas, conversations, start talking about it, start normalizing it, start saying, I'm tired. I'm going to go home now and catch up on some rest instead of, oh, I'm tired and I still have 15 more experiments to go and I'm gonna do them boundaries some micro ways to set boundaries again there is no need to start with immediately like I'm only going to work nine to five and that's it nothing nothing is gonna come between me and my rest start with small ways start with whatever feels kind of safe maybe a little bit challenging but still kind of safe for you and it doesn't send you into a complete panic and then finally white space again short periods of white space scheduled into your calendar. Scheduled reminders, notifications, alarms, whatever you need to stop what you're doing and actually stick to your white space. Stick to this little micro break to rest and recharge your batteries a little bit. And I do think that especially, you know, if you're a mentor, if you're somebody who has students who's teaching, who's supervising, it is so important that you model that. Don't just model critical thinking and scientific thinking and best practices in science and research in the lab, whatever it is. Model this. Model a healthy relationship with your work and with... the importance, the place that the work has in your life. Of course, you know, it's going to be different. You're going to meet different people. You're going to have different students. And for some, maybe the position of work in their life will be higher, maybe lower. And we kind of might adapt a little bit to that. But I think we do need to show to everybody, irrespectively of... their approach and their attitude that there is a way to be productive sustainably in a way that doesn't lead to a complete breakdown and burnout all right i think i'm gonna leave it there and go back to splash in the pool with my son and thank you so much for listening I'm going to leave a few resources in the description of the video in the description of the podcast on Spotify as well there will be my leave your work at work mini bundle a resource that helps you deal with rest guilt it's a private podcast so it's like a free audio training and then a meditation about 10 minutes meditation to really help you deal with this guilt and remind yourself that you don't have to earn rest you don't have to deserve it you can just rest because because here you are and you need it and another resource since we talked a little bit about moving at your desk or during your white space another resource is a brief video guide to some desk friendly workouts or desk friendly stretches yoga inspired but it can be done without any mat without any workout clothes just to get your body moving get your neck and shoulders a bit more relaxed if you're spending a lot of time at your desk or you're crunched over your lab bench or something. I'll leave all those resources in the description. Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have an amazing day and I'll see you next time. Bye!