Push through or rest? Wrong question.
A neuroscientist started the discussion. Here's what she left out.
Everyone tells you the same two things about emotions.
Follow your feelings. Or ignore them and push through.
Both are wrong.
Nicole Vignola, a neuroscientist, recently wrote:
“Your entire life will change when you realize you don’t have to feel good to do the things you said you’d do. Emotions are good but over-relying on them to drive your actions is a slippery slope.”
Nicole is right. But she left out the harder part.
Most people hear this and think it means: become a robot. Override everything. Feelings are weakness. That’s not what she said. But for people who already live in their heads, that’s the only version of her advice they know how to apply.
I think emotions work more like a smoke detector. Useful for alerting you something needs attention. But you don’t want it making your dinner plans.
The trick isn’t feelings or thinking. It’s using emotions as information, not instructions. Let your body notify what needs attention. Let your brain decide what to do about it.
But even knowing that, the hardest question remains: when do you actually listen?
When should I actually rest?
A reader asked what I think is the real question:
“I feel like this is one of the most confusing parts of the human psyche. When should I override my emotions and push through them and when do I genuinely need to rest and slow down”
She posted it rhetorically. She didn’t expect a real answer.
But I think most people have stopped expecting one. They ask this question, shrug, and go back to guessing.
And it starts with why most people figure this out too late.
You push through for days. Then weeks. Until the tiredness is undeniable and you have no choice but to stop.
By then, the damage is already compounding. You need more rest than you would have. You’re closer to burnout than you realize.
It works. But it’s expensive.
I know this because I’ve lived it. When several exciting projects overlap — writing, coding, research — I can’t turn work off. I skip sleep. I tell myself I’ll rest tomorrow. The work is too good right now.
Then one morning the thing I was excited about feels like a chore. I open the laptop and want to close it immediately. My body crashes. And I need days, sometimes weeks, before the work feels fun again.
Every time, the signals were there earlier. I wasn’t ignoring them. I just never thought to check.
Most advice says push through. And it works. Overriding fatigue, ignoring doubt, executing relentlessly. That’s your thinking brain doing exactly what it’s designed to do.
But it treats every signal the same. Laziness and exhaustion both get the same answer: keep going.
Not all resistance is the same. Sometimes your body has too much energy and needs to move. Sometimes it has nothing left. Sometimes your mind just doesn’t want to start.
They all feel like “I don’t want to do this.” But what you need to do about each one is completely different.
Your body already has the answer.
The skill is naming which one you’re actually in. But how do you tell them apart?
Not by thinking harder.
You live in your head. Thinking, planning, worrying. Right now, as you read this, you’re probably not noticing your breath, your posture, or the tension in your neck.
But your body is sending signals all day. Not just tension and tightness, subtler things. A sense of contraction or openness. A quiet “no” that shows up before you can explain why. A pull toward rest, or toward action.
The reason this sounds woo-woo is because the people who need it most have been disconnected the longest. The signals are already there. They exist in everyone. What varies is how well you’ve learned to notice and trust them.
Here’s what it looks like.
Same resistance. Different fix.
Last week I sat down to work and felt the pull to do anything else. Restless. Agitated. Bouncing between tabs. I couldn’t sit still. Legs bouncing, mind jumping from one thing to the next.
I stopped and noticed my body. Energy was there. Too much of it, actually. I just didn’t know where to start. Too many browser tabs. Too many half-finished thoughts. The energy had nowhere to go.
I took a short walk outside. Came back, closed the extra browser tabs. Put my phone in a drawer. Cleared the random stuff off my desk. Wrote down what I actually needed to do. Broke it into small pieces. Started the first one.
Twenty minutes later I was in flow. Not by thinking about working, but just working. The part of me that watches and evaluates had gone quiet.
Different day. Same feeling of resistance. But this time: heavy, foggy. I tried to focus and the words wouldn’t come. My neck was tight. Eyes strained from hours on the screen. My body had been pushing too long and it was telling me to stop.
I checked in again with my body. It didn’t feel right. I wanted to stand up, walk around, breathe some fresh air. Not feeling agitated. Something quieter. Like my body was done before my mind agreed.
I took a walk. Ate. Stretched. Took a short nap.
Came back and finished in half the time it would have taken if I’d forced it.
Same feeling on the surface. Completely different underneath.
I still misread the signal sometimes. Pushing through when my body needed rest. Resting when the resistance was just laziness. But each time, I learn the difference a little faster.
You’ve already done this before. You just didn’t name it.
Think about the last time you forced yourself to work when you were exhausted. Three hours to do what should have taken 30 minutes. You finally gave up, slept, came back fresh, and finished in 20 minutes.
Or the time you felt resistance, pushed through anyway, and hit flow 10 minutes later.
You already know the difference. You just don’t trust yourself to name it.
The 60-second check-in
So the answer isn’t push through OR rest.
It’s: get specific about what you’re actually feeling first. Then decide.
The smoke detector doesn’t tell you if it’s a real fire or burnt toast. That’s your job.
And if you’re reading this thinking “I’m fine, I just push through”, you’re probably the most at risk. Discipline has worked for you. That’s the problem. You’ve built a life on overriding signals. So when a signal is actually trying to save you, you override that too.
So pick one moment this week when you feel resistance. Don’t push through. Don’t give in. Just stop for 60 seconds and check in with your body.
Is it restless legs and a racing mind? Or heavy eyes and a foggy head?
Then decide.
Rest when your body says rest. Move when it says move. And push through when the energy is there and your brain is just being lazy.
You need one honest check-in.
This is also why meditation, breathwork, and movement actually help, not for the reasons people think. They don’t fix you. They quiet the noise in your head long enough for the signals to get through.
Your head is exceptional at planning, analyzing, and executing. But it doesn’t feel. And the answer to “rest or push through” isn’t a thought. It’s a sensation.
Start checking.