Hi! My name is Bree, and I write about how to make work more joyful and less everything. Subscribe for weekly essays on everything from rewiring organizations to cozy teams to living a Portfolio Life.
I have a cold.
If you had a cold, what would you tell yourself is a “reasonable” amount of time to rest?
a) 2-3 days in bed
b) 1 day in bed
c) carry on but cancel an inessential meeting/errand or two
d) um… do people really rest for colds?
I’m usually a c/d girl myself, because some things just need to keep getting done like caregiving, and because it feels like more work to reschedule stuff than it does to just power through. But I have to say, my body disagrees. My body would prefer we’re an a/b kind of girl.
And if I’m honest, caregiving and rescheduling hassles aren’t really why I don’t power down. I don’t know why I just said that. The real truth is that it feels incorrect.
Like I’d be embarrassed to tell others I’m resting… I imagine them thinking:
“It’s just a cold! Not typhoid.”
“You don’t look that bad.”
“Can’t you just work from bed?”
Now no one actually says this. SYP is a particularly “Take care of yourself—the team’s got you!” kind of place. This is me estimating what’s “reasonable” in the larger culture around me. But who decided what’s reasonable? Who decided colds aren’t worth resting for?
Probably the same goons that decided on the 5/2 weekday/weekend split, and I don’t like those people.
I tell myself things like, “If I just take a day and really rest, I’ll probably be back on my feet tomorrow instead of dragging and feeling shitty for a whole week of semi-productivity.” and “Bree, your health comes first.”
But I don’t know still doesn’t seem right.
A cold feels closer to a paper cut than the flu. But is it? How do we draw our own subjective lines of what’s “working condition” and what’s not? I remember having a stomach bug one time that had me vomiting all day and I thought to myself with relief, “At least I know for sure I can’t work!” It’s like some weird imposter’s syndrome / hypochondria mash-up that I worry I’m overstating my sickness and that surely I’m fine and can keep going.
Do you ever feel this way??
Anyway, I’m writing this from bed. Going to transition to Love is Blind and bone broth now…
Dear Bree,
Sending you all the healthy vibes
May you feel better
💓
It's years and years and years of being conditioned to ignore how our bodies feel!! I still struggle with it too. I've been doing a qualitative study about what it means to have a healthy relationship with work and the pattern that stands out the most is the one where we habitually stuff down how we feel (not how we think about what we feel) so that we can Do More Things. The folks who have a good relationship with their work also seem to have a good relationship with their bodies — they rest when they feel like resting and stop when they're done. Easy, right? lololol. Only if you haven't given the last 20 years of your life to the productivity doom loop! For us, we've gotta get our reps in watching Love is Blind. Enjoy your rest!