“Just Relax,” They Said: Why Rest Can Feel So Hard With ADHD

“Just relax.”

Easy peasy…. *cue the internal eye roll.

Just relax. Just stop thinking. Just sit down. Just switch off. Think of nothing.

Lovely idea.

But hang on a minute.

How?

What does “relax” actually mean when your brain is buzzing, your body feels like it has an internal motor propelling you from commitment to commitment, task to task? The washing basket is giving you side-eye, the floor needs hoovering, the emails need answering, and somewhere in the background there is a running to-do list with its own backing vocals?

I will rest when the washing up is done.

I will sit down when the house is tidy.

I will stop when I have caught up.

Except the finish line keeps moving.

There is always another job. Another message. Another thing to remember. Another thing I forgot to remember. Another thing I should have done three days ago.

And then someone says, “You need to rest.”

Yes, thank you. I know.

But knowing and doing are not always neighbours.

What even is rest?

I used to think rest meant doing nothing.

And doing nothing felt almost impossible.

Not peaceful. Not calm. Not restorative.

More like sitting in a room with every thought I had been outrunning, suddenly pulling up a chair beside me.

The anxious thoughts. The self-critical thoughts. The “what if” thoughts.

The “you should be doing something useful” thoughts. The “everyone else manages, so why can’t you?” thoughts.

For many people with ADHD, rest is not simply the absence of activity. Sometimes, stopping means we suddenly notice everything we have been pushing through.

That can feel overwhelming.

Research into ADHD and mind wandering suggests that many adults with ADHD experience frequent, spontaneous mental activity that can feel hard to control. Bozhilova and colleagues describe ADHD-related mind wandering as constant mental activity with poor topic stability (oh look, a butterfly). In normal language, that means the mind can bounce, drift, loop, jump and wander even when we are desperately trying to settle it.

So when someone says, “just stop thinking,” I do wonder if they have ever actually tried having a brain.

The brain that keeps going

ADHD is often described through behaviour: fidgeting, forgetfulness, impulsivity, distractibility, restlessness.

But underneath those behaviours are regulation difficulties.

Regulating attention.

Regulating emotion.

Regulating energy.

Regulating movement.

Regulating the shift between “go” and “stop.”

That last one is important.

Because sometimes I do not feel like I can slow down. I feel like I have two settings: all or nothing, on or off. 

All is busy, useful, productive, slightly chaotic, fuelled by pressure, novelty, urgency or guilt.

Nothing is the crash.

The bit where I finally stop and suddenly cannot restart.

This is where we need to be careful with the science. It can be tempting to say, “That is cortisol,” or “That is dopamine,” as if one chemical explains the whole experience. The truth is more complex. ADHD involves multiple brain systems, including attention networks, executive function, reward processing, motor activity and emotional regulation. Stress hormones may be part of the wider picture for some people, but burnout cannot be reduced to a single chemical tap being turned on or off.

Still, the lived experience is real.

Many of us know what it feels like to run on pressure for too long, then finally stop and feel everything drop out from underneath us.

Not relaxed.

Not rested.

Just gone. Like an empty vessel, devoid of personality, vacant.

Driven by a motor

One of the diagnostic descriptions of ADHD includes being “on the go” or acting as if “driven by a motor.” For some, this is visible: pacing, fidgeting, tapping, cleaning, sorting, rearranging, doing.

For others, like me, the motor is internal.

The body looks still, but inside, the thoughts are doing laps around the car park.

Research on motor activity in ADHD suggests that movement is not just “naughty behaviour” or excess energy. It may be linked to cognitive demands, self-regulation and the effort required to stay engaged. Some studies have even suggested that movement may sometimes support attention rather than simply disrupt it.

That does not mean every movement is helpful in every situation.

But it does challenge the idea that stillness is always the goal.

This is where I want to play devil’s advocate.

What if rest for some ADHD brains does not always look like lying still?

What if rest sometimes looks like walking?

Stretching?

Rocking?

Gardening?

Taking a digital break from the phone that once connected us, but is now the harbinger of doom (doom scrolling at least)

Slowly tidying one small surface while listening to music?

Sitting under a blanket with your hands busy?

Doing something rhythmic enough to soothe the body, but gentle enough not to become another performance?

Perhaps the question is not always, “How do I stop moving?”

Perhaps sometimes it is, “What kind of movement helps me feel safe enough to slow down?”

Why rest can feel lazy

There is another layer to this.

Many of us did not arrive at adulthood with a kind relationship to rest.

We learned to earn it.

Rest after the jobs are done.

Rest after the house is clean.

Rest after everyone else is sorted.

Rest after we have proved we are not lazy.

And if you are a woman with ADHD, especially one who has spent years masking, overcompensating or trying to appear “on top of things,” rest can feel loaded with shame.

Because stopping can whisper:

You are falling behind.

You are not doing enough.

People will think you are lazy.

You should be able to manage this.

This is not just ADHD. This is culture too.

We live in a world that often praises productivity, busyness and self-sacrifice. A world that claps for the woman who does everything, remembers everything, carries everything and still smiles.

Then we wonder why she cannot relax.

For some of us, rest does not feel like care; It feels like danger.

Danger of being judged.

The danger of dropping balls - the plates must keep spinning…

Danger of forgetting something important.

Danger of finally feeling the exhaustion we have been avoiding.

The perfection trap

Sometimes I cannot rest because I am interested in something new.

Sometimes I cannot rest because I am anxious.

Sometimes I cannot rest because my brain has found a fresh idea and is off on an adventure without asking permission, and several parts of me have already left, orienteering their way into some coordination plan.

But sometimes, if I am honest, I cannot rest because something in me believes I am only allowed to stop when everything is perfect.

The kitchen must be clean.

The washing must be folded.

The messages must be answered.

The plan must be made.

The inbox must be cleared.

The children must be sorted.

The future must be controlled.

No pressure then.

For many ADHD women, perfectionism is not vanity. It is protection.

If I get it right, I cannot be criticised.

If I keep everything under control, nobody will see the mess underneath.

If I do more than enough, maybe nobody will notice how hard I am working to appear okay.

But perfection is a terrible gatekeeper for rest. Because perfection never opens the gate.

So where is the balance?

When exploring stress versus overstimulation, stress needs us to push through, overstimulation requires a step back, but yet, what happens when we're stressed, overstimulated, and overwhelmed?!

I do not think the answer is simply “do less.”

That can feel dismissive.

It also ignores the reality that people have jobs, children, caring responsibilities, homes, bills, appointments, messages and actual lives.

But I also do not think the answer is “push through.”

Pushing through is often what got us here.

Maybe balance begins somewhere smaller.

Not a complete lifestyle overhaul.

Not a perfect morning routine.

Not a colour-coded rest plan that becomes another thing to fail at.

Maybe it starts with asking:

What kind of rest does my brain actually tolerate?

What kind of rest leaves me feeling better, not worse?

Do I need quiet, or gentle sound? Or do I need to blast some old school pianos and dance around the kitchen?

Do I need stillness, or do I need slow movement?

Do I need solitude, or do I need safe company?

Do I need sleep, food, water, fresh air, warmth, pressure, softness, music, darkness, light?

Rest is not one thing.

Rest can be sensory.

Emotional.

Physical.

Social.

Creative.

Spiritual.

Practical.

Sometimes rest is lying down.

Sometimes rest is cancelling the thing.

Sometimes rest is not checking WhatsApp or Messenger when it beeps.

Sometimes rest is sitting in the car for five minutes before going inside.

Sometimes rest is body doubling the washing up, so it stops shouting from the sink.

Sometimes rest is saying, “I cannot do that today.”

Sometimes rest is lowering the standard from perfect to kind.

The uncomfortable truth

Here is the bit I do not always like.

If we only rest when we crash, we are not resting.

We are recovering from depletion.

And yes, sometimes crashing is the only thing our body can do after too much for too long. That is not failure. That is the nervous system trying to protect what is left.

But I wonder what would happen if we stopped treating rest as the reward at the end and started seeing it as part of the process.

Not something we earn.

Something we need.

Not laziness.

Maintenance.

Not weakness.

Wisdom.

And maybe, for ADHD brains, rest needs to be more flexible than the world has allowed it to be.

Perhaps rest is not about forcing ourselves into someone else’s version of calm.

Perhaps it is about learning what helps our own system soften.

Gently.

Imperfectly.

With compassion.

Because “just relax” might be terrible advice.

But “let’s find out what rest actually means for your brain” feels like a much kinder place to begin.

References

Bozhilova, N. S., Michelini, G., Kuntsi, J., & Asherson, P. (2018). Mind wandering perspective on attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 92, 464-476. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2018.07.010

Gawrilow, C., Kühnhausen, J., Schmid, J., & Stadler, G. (2014). Hyperactivity and motoric activity in ADHD: Characterization, assessment, and intervention. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 5, 171. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2014.00171

Martz, E., Weiner, L., Bonnefond, A., & Weibel, S. (2023). Disentangling racing thoughts from mind wandering in adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1166602. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1166602

Yacoub, M. W., Smith, S. R., Abbas, B., Iqbal, F., Jazieh, C. M. O., Al Shaer, N. S. H., Luk, C. C., & Syed, N. I. (2025). Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): A comprehensive overview of the mechanistic insights from human studies to animal models. Cells, 14(17), 1367. https://doi.org/10.3390/cells14171367

Schweitzer, J., Lewis, S., & Hartanto, T. (2016). Don’t stop the movement! Attention Magazine. CHADD.