From the archive: ‘We are busy about everything’

When the editor of The Psychologist interviewed me about my book The Art of Rest at the end of 2019, we had no idea that the Covid pandemic would soon upend all our lives. We discussed how to achieve more rest assuming we'd carry on being busy in the same old ways.

I'm struck by the fact that we didn't discuss one issue that I do tackle in the book: the fact that enforced rest can be far from restful. Yet enforced rest (from work at least) was soon to be imposed on millions of people. And with it came the notion of 'doing lockdown well'.   Some may have made the most of the time, but I'm guessing more were left with a sense of guilt that they didn't learn Mandarin or perfect their sourdough baking. Instead, some found the empty hours oppressive and difficult to fill.

And many people, of course, were still out at work and working harder than ever, sometimes in fearful circumstances, or struggling to get to grips with WHF, while home-schooling their kids.

In mid-March 2020, I was up a mountain in the Lake District and came down to find the literary festival I was speaking at closing down around me. When I checked my emails there was nothing but messages cancelling every date on my book tour. So, I suspected that apart from my regular radio programmes, I'd soon be experiencing plenty of enforced rest myself.

How wrong I was. Over the next few months, I was busier than ever as both BBC Radio 4 and the World Service commissioned extra series on the pandemic. I began cycling across a ghost city, London, to a ghost ship, Broadcasting House, to present so many Covid specials that I stopped counting at 150.

I also rigged up a makeshift studio at home – and this change has stuck. I still do plenty of All in the Mind interviews in the spare room, with the curtains closed and an eiderdown above my head to dampen the echoes. The illuminated 'On Air' sign my husband bought me as a joke is now genuinely useful, preventing his occasional calls up the stairs of 'Would you like a cup of tea' from interrupting recordings.

There's no doubt that the lockdowns increased interest in the subject of rest. When the paperback of The Art of Rest came out in November 2021 Waterstones selected it as their non-fiction book of the month. This meant copies would be prominently displayed on their own table for four weeks in every branch – the kind of promotion every author dreams of. I did get to see one of those tables, just once. Five days into November, there was another lockdown.

But the interest in rest has continued. Even now, five years, on I'm still asked to do as many talks and podcasts about rest as I am for my latest book The Keys to Kindness. I think the pandemic led people to ponder more on rest – on how essential it is, yet how strangely difficult it is to feel truly rested and relaxed.

Personally, and learning from my own book, I continue to take regular breaks without feeling guilty, and gardening remains my preferred restful activity. (I remember the editor of The Psychologist suggesting it was 'outdoor housework', but I still think he's wrong.) On the other hand, I've got no better at saying 'no' to things, so I remain busy, perhaps too busy. Indeed, you could say that my aim to get more rest remains a work in progress.