Sarah Bennett never meant to burn out.
She just wanted to get through the week, keep her family in clean underwear, and maybe even find time to wash her hair.
But when her coffee mug stops cooperating, Sarah realises something’s off: She’s not just tired. She’s empty: mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and probably electrolytically.
Armed with a deeply suspicious relationship with downtime, a colour-coded planner, a laundry pile auditioning for Everest, and a rest coach she’s not entirely sure she believes in, Sarah sets out on a wildly unscientific experiment:
What if rest isn’t failure? What if it’s how you come back to yourself?
Part midlife memoir, part tired woman’s guide to doing less (without falling apart), THE GREAT REST EXPERIMENT is a tender, funny, quietly rebellious invitation to stop pushing through and start restoring.
Think science meets humour with a dash of soul-searching (and snacks).
This book is for:
Women who’ve been saying 'I just need to get through this week' since 2007.
Those holding up everyone else’s lives with a brain running 42 tabs at once and a rapidly fraying nerve.
Anyone navigating the messy middle of life with no user manual and a to-do list in permanent caps lock.
If you’ve ever smiled through burnout or confused surviving with thriving, this book might just offer the one thing you’ve been craving: Permission to stop. Permission to rest.
WARNING: For external use only. Contains rest-related content. Side effects may include spontaneous naps, snort-laughs, and a life you actually want to be awake for.
Do not apply while over-functioning, overthinking, or operating a digital device on less than five hours of sleep.
This book isn’t really about rest. It’s about you.
Your one wild, weary, wonderful life.
And what might happen if you stopped treating exhaustion like a badge of honour.
This book is for every woman who's hit the wall and decided it was as good a place as any to start again (preferably lying down).
Let’s be honest: modern life runs on autopilot.
We tell ourselves, ‘I’ll slow down…’
…when things settle
…when the to-do list shrinks
…when we finally catch up (whatever that means)
But here’s the thing: ‘someday’ never shows up on its own. And your body will whisper until it has to shout.
This isn’t another book telling you to wake up at 5am and journal in a sunbeam. It’s for women who want real rest, in real life, with real obstacles.
This isn’t about bubble baths or burnout. It’s about paying attention to the life you’re living, before it passes in a blur of busyness.
THE GREAT REST EXPERIMENT is full of gentle but simple tools to help you pause, reflect, and reset:
Midlife musings (the honest kind)
Tiny, doable rest practices that actually fit into real life
Permission to slow the heck down (without guilt)
And experiments that help you figure out what you actually need
Because this isn’t just about feeling better.
It’s about coming back to yourself.
My mission isn’t just to write a book about rest.
It’s to kickstart a midlife rebellion: led by women who are overbooked, overtired, and over it.
(And who may or may not be hiding in the bathroom just to get a moment of peace.)
THE GREAT REST EXPERIMENT is for anyone who's spent more time caring for everyone else than they have themselves - and is starting to suspect that might not be sustainable.
Reading this book might feel like putting on glasses after years of squinting through burnout:
That to-do list that reads like a hostage negotiation
The group chats and groups you mute but never leave
The ‘quick favours’ that somehow eat your whole afternoon
The dreams you’re chasing that don’t even belong to you
So, I invite you to grab THE GREAT REST EXPERIMENT today.
It won’t magically fold the laundry or answer your 17 unread texts and 4 group chats. But it will help you lie down without guilt, say no without overexplaining, and remember what it feels like to just 'be' for a minute.
This is your invitation to make the ‘here’ part well-rested, wildly real, and occasionally horizontal.
Rest wasn’t the plan. But you might want a pen.
Welcome to The Great Rest Experiment Workbook — part reflection, part rebellion, and entirely too chill to be on your to-do list.
Let’s be honest, lovely - you probably didn’t plan for rest.
You planned for productivity, deadlines, and maybe a quick break that never actually happened.
But here you are, somewhere between 'I need a nap' and 'I’ll rest when things calm down' (spoiler: they won’t).
Good news: this isn’t another thing to tick off.
There are no gold stars, no perfect answers, and definitely no 'right' way to rest.
Think of this as your soft rebellion: a workbook-slash-journal-slash-experiment designed to help you pause, play, and notice what actually feels good.
Inside, you’ll find practical rest practices, curious prompts, and little experiments for real life: the kind with laundry piles, group chats, and unfinished cups of tea.
So grab a pen (or don’t).
Scribble, spill, doodle, or completely ignore it for a week.
There’s no wrong way to rest - just your way.
Here are 8 ways your unlikely friendship with rest
will quietly change everything:
So… what kind of rest do you really need?
Spoiler: it’s not always a nap.
Take the quiz and find out which one you need right now, then start playing with it in real life.
Life:
Let’s make it less ‘meh.’
More naps you don’t have to earn.
More laughs that snort out of your nose.
Less ‘no, it’s fine’ while Googling ‘how to disappear.’