Hey Reader,
You finally get a free day.
No meetings. No obligations. No one asking anything of you.
You stay home. You do 'nothing'. You rest.
And somehow, by the end of the day, you're still tired.
Not physically exhausted - you haven't done anything. But mentally, emotionally, energetically... depleted.
What's wrong with you?
Nothing. You just rested when you needed to regulate.
Unbound Shift
Most advice about 'self-care' gets this one thing wrong:
It treats rest and recovery as the same thing. They're not.
Rest is the absence of activity. Sitting on the sofa. Scrolling your phone. Watching TV. Doing nothing demanding.
Recovery is the regulation of your nervous system. It's what actually restores your capacity to engage with the world.
For introverts, this distinction matters more than for anyone else.
Here's why:
Introverts have higher baseline cortical arousal - your brain is naturally more 'switched on' than an extrovert's. You're also more sensitive to dopamine (the neurotransmitter associated with external stimulation and reward-seeking) and rely more heavily on acetylcholine (associated with internal thought, reflection, and calm focus).
What this means practically:
Your nervous system gets overstimulated more easily and takes longer to return to baseline.
A day of back-to-back meetings doesn't just tire you - it dysregulated your entire system.
And when you're dysregulated, rest doesn't fix it.
Lying on the sofa scrolling Threads is rest. But your nervous system is still processing stimulation (bright screen, rapid content switching, social comparison, notifications). You're resting, but you're not regulating.
The shift: You can't rest your way out of overstimulation. You need recovery that actively engages your parasympathetic nervous system - the rest and digest state that actually allows regulation.
Unbound Step
This week, try this distinction:
Rest = passive, low effort, often numbing
Examples: TV, scrolling, lying down doing nothing
Recovery = active regulation, intentional, restorative
Examples: Walking in nature, creative work that absorbs you, deep conversation with one trusted person, reading (physical book, not screen), cooking something simple, journaling
Notice which one you default to when you're depleted.
Most introverts reach for rest because it's easier. But then wonder why they're still tired.
Try choosing recovery instead:
- Identify what actually regulates your nervous system. Not what 'should' relax you, but what genuinely brings you back to baseline. For some it's music. For others it's movement, or creating something, or complete silence in nature.
- Distinguish between alone time and recovery time. Being alone is necessary but not sufficient. You can be alone and still overstimulated (scrolling, ruminating, consuming content). Recovery requires reducing input, not just removing people.
- Design your day with regulation in mind, not just rest. Instead of I need to rest this evening, ask what would help my nervous system return to baseline? The answer might be active, not passive.
This is the difference between coping and operating sustainably.
Rest helps you survive another day. Recovery rebuilds your capacity to engage.
And recovery, unlike rest, requires infrastructure. Systems that protect you from overstimulation in the first place. Boundaries that preserve your baseline. Practices that actively regulate rather than passively numb.
That's what we're building in the Introvert OS™ workshop tomorrow - the systems that make regulation automatic instead of something you have to remember when you're already depleted.
If this resonates - if you're tired of resting but never recovering - there's still a few more hours to join: https://www.introvert-os.com.
But whether the workshop is right for you or not, try the distinction this week.
Notice when you're resting and when you're actually regulating. Your nervous system will tell you the difference.
In your corner always,
Sam 💛
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Sam Sheppard
Introvert OS™
I share practical tools to help you design a life that actually fits.
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