Caregiver Exhaustion: The 7 Types of Rest You Didn’t Know You Needed
- Kim Moy
- 4 hours ago
- 5 min read
Dear fellow caregiver, are you exhausted?
Not just tired. Not just ready for a good night’s sleep.
But bone-deep, soul-level exhausted?
While our loved ones struggle with chronic fatigue, unrefreshing sleep, pain, and other debilitating symptoms of chronic illness… we as their caregivers are exhausted too.
It’s no wonder.
There’s the physical fatigue from interrupted sleep, and the way your body and nervous system stays on constant alert.
There’s the mental exhaustion from constantly juggling medications, medical appointments, health insurance calls, meals, work, and the ever-growing to-do list that never seems to end.
There’s the emotional weight of ambiguous loss, the grief for your loved one’s suffering and for the life you once had before chronic illness reshaped everything.
And here’s something I want you to hear clearly:
Even if you’re technically getting enough sleep, you can still be profoundly exhausted.
Because sleep is only one kind of rest.
You May Need More Than Sleep
In her book “Sacred Rest,” Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith describes seven types of rest. Each one addresses a different kind of depletion.
As caregivers, we often experience deficits in multiple categories at once.
Let’s walk through them through a caregiving lens and identify some practical ideas to get the different types of rest you need.
1) Physical Rest
If you’re physically depleted, you may feel:
Heavy and weary
Foggy and slow
More prone to colds or other illnesses
Achy or tense
Physical rest can be passive or active.
A few practical ideas for passive physical rest:
Getting enough sleep at night
Taking naps after late-night caregiving
Simply lying down and letting your body soften and relax in the middle of the day
A few practical ideas for active physical rest, which includes gentle, restorative movement:
A short walk around the block
Light stretching after waking up or before going to bed
Yoga (Here’s a synopsis of research on yoga’s impact on your physical health and well-being)
Massage therapy
I often tell caregivers: Don’t underestimate 10 minutes of walking outdoors. When we’re constantly bracing ourselves — emotionally and physically — our muscles tighten. Walking outdoors gives you both a gentle physical activity to loosen your muscles and a pleasant change of scenery, ideally in nature.
2) Mental Rest
Caregivers live in a state of constant cognitive load.
You’re tracking symptoms. Planning next steps. Researching treatments. Anticipating problems before they arise.
If you have racing thoughts, trouble concentrating, or difficulty falling asleep because your mind won’t shut off — you may need mental rest.
A few practical ideas to try for mental rest:
Schedule a 10-minute reset every two hours. Step away. Breathe slowly. Look at something outside – trees, flowers, the sky.
On particularly hard days, take a longer mental health break — 30 to 60 minutes in nature if possible.
If you have racing thoughts when trying to go to sleep, write down your to-do list so it’s not spinning in your head.
Even better, write a nightly Good Jobs List — a short list of what you did well that day. It helps you go to sleep with a sense of completion instead of deficiency.
Caregiving creates an endless list of unfinished tasks. Mental rest reminds your brain: enough for today.
3) Spiritual Rest
Spiritual rest isn’t necessarily religious.
It’s about connection — to meaning, to purpose, to something larger than yourself, and beyond the daily grind of logistics.
You might need spiritual rest if you feel:
Disconnected
Cynical
Numb
Aimless
A few practical ideas to try for spiritual rest:
Mindfulness or meditation practices
Sitting quietly in nature and feeling awe
Reflective journaling, a gratitude practice, or prayer
Creative self-expression
Volunteering or serving in ways that align with your values
Caregiving can shrink life down to survival. Spiritual rest gently widens it again.
4) Sensory Rest
Modern life is loud. Screens. Notifications. News alerts. Text messages. Medical portals. Phone calls. Background noise.
Add caregiving to that, and your senses may never get a break.
Signs you need sensory rest:
Feeling “fried” by the end of the day
Irritability
Overwhelm
A few practical ideas to try for sensory rest:
Turning off devices for a few hours — or a full “digital sabbath” day if possible.
Closing your eyes for five minutes in a dark, quiet room.
Not checking your phone while waiting in line or whenever you have a free moment. Train yourself to not seek a dopamine hit of novelty from your phone. Let yourself be bored.
Consider a sound bath, where deep sound vibrations made by a soothing instrument can help you decompress. If you can't find a live sound bath near you, you can check out YouTube videos.
Constant stimulation keeps your nervous system activated. Sensory rest allows it to power down.
5) Creative Rest
Caregivers are constant problem-solvers.
And problem-solving requires creativity.
If you’re feeling stuck, uninspired, or dull, you may need creative rest.
Creative rest means taking in beauty and wonder, and not expecting yourself to be a constantly productive machine. Taking a break actually allows you to become more creative and productive later.
A few practical ideas to try for creative rest:
Visiting a park and noticing colors, textures, sounds, and smells.
Listening to music that moves you.
Reading poetry that inspires you.
Visiting an art exhibit (even virtually), reading a book, or watching soothing videos that have nothing to do with caregiving or your other responsibilities.
Creative rest reawakens awe — something caregiving can quietly bury.
6) Emotional Rest
This one hits most caregivers hard.
Emotional rest means having the time and space to be honest about how you feel, to freely express your feelings, and to cut back on people pleasing while ignoring your own needs.
If you’re constantly:
Holding it together
Saying “I’m fine” when you’re not
Saying yes when you want to say no
Taking care of everyone else’s emotional needs
You likely need emotional rest.
A few practical ideas to try for emotional rest:
Journal honestly — no censoring.
Confide in a trusted friend. Attend a caregiver support group meeting.
Practice saying, “I need to think about that,” instead of giving an automatic yes to requests.
Allow yourself to answer “How are you?” truthfully with, “I’m having a hard day.”
Give yourself some self-compassion. Dr. Kristin Neff offers some great self-compassion practices for caregivers - I highly recommend checking them out.
Caregiving already demands so much. Emotional rest is necessary to help us not feel emotionally drained. You may need to wait until a stressful situation passes before you’re able to find relief. Just make sure you prioritize and make time for emotional rest.
7) Social Rest
Not all relationships are equal.
Some interactions leave you lighter. Others leave you drained.
If you feel lonely even around people, or dread certain social obligations, you may need social rest.
Try this simple exercise:
On one side of a paper, list people who feel supportive, kind, and easy to be around.
On the other side, list people who feel demanding or exhausting.
Prioritize time — even virtual time — with the first group.
Limit exposure to the second group when possible.
Social rest isn’t isolation. It’s discernment.
Caregivers Need Rest, Too
We are so focused on our loved one’s fatigue that we often ignore our own.
But here’s the truth:
You are carrying enormous weight.
Of course you’re tired.
Instead of asking, “Why am I so exhausted?”
Try asking, “What kind of rest do I need?”
Physical?
Mental?
Emotional?
Spiritual?
Sensory?
Creative?
Social?
You may need more than one.
As a fellow chronic illness caregiver, I want to remind you:
And caregiving, as you know, is a long road. You deserve the kind of rest that truly restores you — not just sleep, but deep replenishment in all the ways you’ve been quietly depleted.
