When everything is tired, can we talk about rest?

You've tried to rest. You've tried to push through. You've tried sleeping more, doing less, and maybe even following all that well-meaning advice about self-care. But somehow, you're still tired.

I know that feeling because I've lived it.

I'm Sandra Littlejohn, and I didn't write this book because I've mastered the art of rest. I wrote it because I was tired, too, and I began to realize that exhaustion is far more complicated than I ever imagined.

Sometimes we're physically tired. Other times, it's the emotional weight of caring for others, the mental energy of managing everyday life, or the accumulated stress of carrying too much for too long. And sometimes, even when we finally get the chance to rest, it doesn't seem to help.

In When Everything Is Tired, I explore ten different kinds of rest, seven types of energy, and why the rest we need depends on what has been depleted. Drawing from lived experience, personal reflection, and years of exploring stress and nervous system regulation, I offer a different way to understand exhaustion and the relationship between our capacity and the choices available to us.

Together, we'll explore how to:

Recognize different kinds of exhaustion and the rest they may require.

Understand how chronic, cumulative, and complex stress affect our energy.

Distinguish between what we want to do, what we have the capacity to do, and where we still have agency.

Find compassionate ways to approach rest without turning it into another responsibility.

Whether you're navigating burnout, chronic illness, neurodivergence, caregiving, or simply a season when life feels like too much, I hope you'll find something familiar in these pages, along with a few new ways to understand what your body and mind need.

Because when everything is tired, the last thing you need is another person telling you how to get rest right.