Somebody taught you that rest is a reward. Maybe it was a boss, a coach, a pastor or a parent who was just trying to keep the lights on. Finish the work, then you can sit down. Get the grades, then you can sleep in. Make it through the year, then you can take a trip.

We want to say this plainly: rest is not a reward. It is maintenance. You do not wait until your car breaks down on the highway to change the oil, and you should not wait until your body quits to take a break.

Saturday, Oct. 10, is World Mental Health Day. This year’s theme is “Lived experiences heard: real voices, real change,” according to the official World Mental Health Day site. So here is our lived experience, and maybe yours too: a lot of us are tired in a way that sleep alone will not fix, because we have never been allowed to rest without guilt.

Why rest is not a reward, by the numbers

The data backs up what many of us feel in our bones.

• In 2024, 40.2 percent of Black adults slept less than 7 hours a night, compared with 28.9 percent of white adults, according to the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics.
• The American Heart Association added sleep to its core checklist for heart health in 2022, recommending 7 to 9 hours for adults.
• Forty-six percent of U.S. workers with paid time off take less than they are offered, and Black workers are more likely than white workers to say fear of losing their job is a reason (21 percent vs. 13 percent), according to Pew Research Center.

Read that last one again. For too many Black workers, a vacation day does not feel like a benefit. It feels like a risk.

We were raised on “twice as good”

There is a reason this runs deep. Many of us grew up hearing that we had to be twice as good to get half as far. That message came from love. It was meant to protect us. But it also taught a lot of us that stopping is dangerous and that our worth is measured in output.

Researchers have names for what that pressure can do. In the early 1980s, Dr. Sherman James described John Henryism, the idea that a single-minded drive to push through hardship and racism can raise the risk of high blood pressure and heart disease in Black Americans. It is named for the folk hero who raced a steam drill and died from the effort, a story many of our families know too well.

For Black women, researchers talk about the Superwoman Schema: the pressure to show strength, hold in emotion, keep succeeding with limited resources and take care of everybody else. A 2019 study of 208 Black women, led by UC Berkeley researchers, found that a strong drive to succeed and a sense of obligation to help others made the health effects of racial discrimination worse, Berkeley News reported.

None of that means ambition is bad or that helping others is wrong. It means the version of strength we inherited did not come with a pause button, and our bodies are keeping score.

Rest is not laziness. It is resistance.

Tricia Hersey has been saying this louder than anyone. She founded The Nap Ministry and wrote Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto, which became a New York Times bestseller. Her work treats rest as a spiritual and social justice practice, rooted in Black liberation theology and womanism, not a spa package.

Watch: Tricia Hersey: Rest & Collective Care as Tools for Liberation from Sounds True

That framing matters. When rest is a reward, only the people who “earned” it get it. When rest is a right, everybody gets it, including the single mom working doubles, the grandfather raising grandkids and the college student carrying a full load and a part-time job. You can find more of these conversations on the Sounds True YouTube channel.

What real rest looks like this month

We are not going to tell you to quit your job or book a two-week retreat. Most people cannot. Rest has to fit real life. Here are small ways to practice it this October:

• Set a bedtime and defend it. Treat it like a meeting you cannot move.
• Use the time you already have. Monday, Oct. 12, is a federal holiday, and many workers have it off. If you have paid time off sitting unused, put a date on the calendar now. Our guide to Black travel destinations for fall and winter can help, but a staycation counts too.
• Move without a goal. A slow walk with friends is rest for your mind. A Black run club or outdoor group can make it social.
• Let a night be boring on purpose. Couch, blanket, a show from our fall streaming guide, phone in the other room.
• Say no once this week without explaining yourself.

If you are exhausted all the time no matter how much you sleep, that is worth a conversation with a doctor, since ongoing fatigue can have medical causes. And if you are struggling emotionally, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is free, confidential and available 24/7 by call, text or chat.

Give yourself permission

Our elders worked so hard so that we could have choices. Many of them never got to rest. Honoring them does not mean repeating their exhaustion. It can mean finishing what they started: building lives where rest is normal, not a prize handed out after we have run ourselves into the ground.

So this World Mental Health Day, do not just post a quote. Take a nap. Take the day. Take your time back. You do not have to earn it. You were born deserving it.

This is an opinion column from BCN Staff. Tell us how you rest in the comments.