The Importance of Rest as a Highly Sensitive Introvert

HSPs and rest aren’t always the best combination. You need more of it but it can be hard to come by.

Rest is so important for everybody. You need to rest if you’re going to show up well for all the things you’re doing in your life. If you are a highly sensitive introvert, a highly-sensitive person, or an introvert it is especially crucial for you to get enough rest. 

There are things about being an HSP or introverted that mean that you need more rest, and this is never more true than during stressful times, hard times, or times of crisis. It’s part of taking care of yourself

Today, I want to share with you some practical tips on how you can get more rest and get better sleep so that you can have what you need to cope better with whatever life is throwing at you.

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify

""

I’m talking to myself as much as I’m talking to you because this is still an area that I struggle with. I struggle so much sometimes to get adequate rest. I’m in a much better place than I was even a year ago when I was not resting at all. 

I was super stressed, I wasn’t getting enough sleep, I wasn’t taking care of myself, and I was not coping well with life. Thankfully, I was able to put some things into place: getting some counseling, getting some meds, changing some dietary things, and moving my body a little bit more.

That helped me get rest. But I still have seasons where I’m like, “Oh, I’m exhausted. Why am I so exhausted? Why am I so cranky?” And I realize that usually, the first thing is that I’m not getting enough rest or I’m not getting the quality rest that I need.

The Bible tells us that we have a whole day that God set aside—a Sabbath, which is supposed to be a time for us to rest and recharge so that we can have the energy and strength we need to do the other things that are on our plate for the rest of the week. 

Matthew 11:28 says, “Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” We were created to work, we were created to do life, but we were also created to rest. 

Let’s get super practical today and talk about how you can rest better and get some better sleep.

Understanding Being an HSP and Introversion

As a highly sensitive person or an introvert (or some combination of those two), we have these traits that are awesome and part of the things that make us wonderful and unique. Like the ability to have deep empathy for other people. 

We’re super creative, have strong intuition, and are reflective deep thinkers. Sometimes we’re overthinkers. We’re really great one-on-one, really connecting with other people. We have the gift of connection.

Along with those gifts come challenges, like being easily overwhelmed by stimuli. If I go somewhere that’s really loud or bright, that zaps my energy fast. Being around people also zaps my energy. 

As an introvert, you recharge by being alone. When you have to go out and interact with people, that drains your battery. If you’re walking through hard times, and struggling with your emotions, this is added stress. This means that you need more rest to compensate for all the things you are experiencing. 

Your nervous system is easily overstimulated, so you need that downtime to do a couple of things: process your emotions and process your experiences. I will give you an example.

I recently had a super busy season. My oldest graduated, we had a lot of events to attend, and I noticed that I was feeling very anxious. I was struggling with anxiety like I hadn’t in a year, and I went to talk to my doctor about it. 

She was like, “Oh, well, that makes sense. You’ve been busy, right? You’ve had to do a lot of social interaction, lots of people. You haven’t been home as much as you normally would be. You need more rest. That’s why you feel more anxious. Try getting more rest and see if that helps.” 

Guess what? It did. When I was able to just be at home more, able to take care of myself and read and walk and paint and all those things, my anxiety dropped, and I was able to then process all of the stimulation that I had been getting because we were just running around fellowshipping with people.

This is the same thing for you. You’ve got to give yourself time to process your life. If you’re super busy, you’ve got to find some time to pause and think, “Okay, I’ve been busy. But what do I need to do to take care of myself?” 

When you are walking through hard times, when you are having emotional struggles, if you’re struggling with anxiety or worry or whatever it is, you have got to give yourself the downtime to process what you’re feeling, experiencing, and thinking. If you don’t, you’re going to be more anxious, more stressed, more cranky, and more exhausted.

Does it feel like your emotions are a storm you can’t control? Do you long for peace, but instead, you’re stuck overthinking, overwhelmed, and unsure of how to move forward? Imagine waking up feeling calm, confident, and capable of handling whatever life throws your way. This transformation is possible—and I’m here to guide you there!
Schedule your first emotional resilience coaching session today!

Why Sleep is Important

How does sleep help with this? Sleep is an important thing for everybody.  You need to rest. You cannot go, go, go, go, go 24/7. That’s not how your body was designed to function. 

Also, sleep is great because it helps you regulate your emotions. When I am well-rested, I can handle things easier. I’m able to recognize what I’m feeling, I’m able to process it, and I’m able to cope better. When I have not gotten a lot of rest, I am cranky, I am irritable, and I’ve got a short fuse. 

Cognitive function is improved when you are rested and have sleep. You’re able to focus; you don’t have that brain fog. You’re able to think clearly and make decisions. All of these things are impaired when you’re tired. 

When I’m tired, I cannot focus. It’s like brain fog times 100 because I can’t focus. My brain is like, “We’re tired. We need sleep. We don’t have what we need to pay attention, to focus, to engage.” 

Sleep also helps you to lower your stress, to reduce your stress, and to recover from stressful situations. How many times have you walked through something really hard or had a tough conversation or a really hard day and you’re like, “All I want to do is just go get in my bed and go to sleep?” 

We need rest. Rest helps us recover. This is the way that God designed us to function. It is how God designed us to have balance in our lives, and to take care of ourselves. We have to learn how to do that.

HSPs Need More Rest

No matter what is going on in your life, you have a heightened need for rest and sleep. If you are a highly sensitive person, an introvert, or a combination of the two, like I am, you need more sleep than the average bear. 

That seven to eight hours of sleep recommended for adults may not be enough. Because you have sensitivity to emotions, environments, people, and even changes in your own home and body, you need more rest. 

Signs You Need Better Sleep

When you don’t get the rest you need, you’re going to start to see things like burnout and being emotionally exhausted, and you’re going to see signs of poor sleep. So here are some examples of what I’m talking about. 

When it comes to rest, here’s how you know that you need to address your sleep and your rest:

Difficulty Falling Asleep

If you get into bed and it takes hours before you’re able to fall asleep, that’s a problem. If you’re waking up a bunch during the night, that’s a problem.  If you can’t go back to sleep once you do wake up, that’s a problem. 

This was me. It would take me hours to fall asleep and then I wouldn’t sleep well. I would be up four, five, six, seven, or eight times in the night and not be able to go back to sleep.

Non-Restorative Sleep

What does that mean? It just means that when you wake up, even if you got eight hours of sleep, you feel like you were hit by a truck. It’s like, “I don’t even feel like I went to sleep at all. I’m so tired, I’m so run down.” Even though you got your “eight hours”, you don’t feel rested. 

Daytime Sleepiness

If you are excessively sleepy or fatigued during the day, even though you’re sleeping at night, that’s a clue that you may need to start looking at how well you’re resting. I don’t mean if you need a nap. Taking a nap can be a good thing. When I have to interact with people a lot, I will often take a nap either that day or the next day to make up for all the energy that I spent.

Change in Sleeping Patterns

If you’re starting to sleep more than usual, or if you’re starting to sleep less than usual, that’s something to pay attention to because if it becomes a pattern, you might need to look into why this is happening. 

Poor Sleep Quality

This is me as well! Maybe you’re having nightmares or vivid dreams that are waking you up so that you’re not getting the rest you need. You may struggle with restless legs. Anything that’s going to give you poor sleep quality. Pay attention to those things because they’re going to give you clues that you need to take a look at what’s going on, and you might need to get some rest. 

You may need to talk to your doctor. Maybe go get an extra counseling or coaching session that month. But these are all clues for things that you need to pay attention to and begin to address.

Mood Changes

When I’m not rested, I’m cranky and not fun to be around. I have mood swings, am more irritable, and am extra sensitive. I am a person who experiences emotions deeply anyway, and when I’m tired, it’s even more than that.  

All of these things—difficulty falling asleep, being awake a lot, not feeling rested when you do wake, being tired during the day, changing your sleep patterns, poor sleep in general, and mood changes—are all clues that you need to address your rest and you need to take a look at your sleep and sleep hygiene. Because there might be things that you need to change or adjust.

Getting More Rest

We’re going to wrap up today with some practical tips for improving your sleep and getting more rest.

Have a Routine

Have daily rest routines: a morning and an evening routine. Are there things that you do that allow you to begin your mornings peacefully and calmly, or do you just wake up and think, “I’ve got to go here, I’ve got to get this kid’s lunch, I’ve got to go to work,” and all those things? You don’t want to be super busy right out of the gate. You want to have time to ease into your day, and then you want to have time to ease out of your day. 

Journaling

Journaling every day, even if it’s five minutes. Five minutes of journaling every single day is going to let you process your emotions, and reflect on your day. All of that can help you when you’re trying to rest because your brain won’t be ruminating on all these things because you’ve got it all out on the page. 

Regular Time with God

Whatever that looks like—prayer, reading your bible, worship, meditating—this is going to help you as well. God has designed us to have rest. He’s designed us to get sleep, and He says, “Come to me.” If you come to me with all that stuff that you’re carrying around, I’m going to give you rest. So making regular time with God is also going to help you when you want to rest.

Improving Your Sleep Quality

The next thing you want to look at is how you can improve your sleep quality or sleep better. Now, listen, I’m not a doctor, so I’m not giving you medical advice. I’m just sharing things that have worked for me, human to human. If there are things that are going on, please, by all means, go see whatever health professional you need to. 

Have a Bedtime

Maintain a consistent schedule. Go to bed at the same time and wake up at the same time every single day. There’s a reason we do this for our kids, right? We need to remember that for ourselves as well because it’ll train your body to recognize when it’s time to get tired and when it’s time to wake up. 

Having that consistency is going to help you rest better. If you’ve ever seen a little kid that’s out and about, playing, and then all of a sudden you can’t find them because they’re asleep underneath the slide, it’s because it’s their nap time, right? Same thing, you want your body to be in the habit of falling asleep and waking up at the same time.

A Bedtime Routine

Include activities like reading, stretching, taking a warm bath, taking a warm shower, listening to music, painting—whatever it is that will help you wind down and cue your brain that it’s time to shut down and go to sleep. 

Keep your bedroom cool if you can. It’s easier to sleep well in a cool room than in a hot room. Keep it dark and keep it quiet. And a little bonus tip: start lowering your lights during your evening time. 

Back before we had lights in every area of our house, people would go to bed with the sun and get up with the sun because that was their source of light. We can mimic the same thing in our own lives. Start turning off your lights. You don’t need to have all of your bright lights on all night long because you want your brain to think, “Oh, okay, it’s time to start winding down and getting some rest.”

Lay Off the Caffeine

Avoid caffeine. Caffeine is not good when you’re trying to get some rest, especially as an introvert. Introverts and caffeine do not go well together. We don’t need that stimulation. Look at caffeine and when you’re consuming it during the day to figure out when you need to cut it off. 

You might be fine to have your cup of coffee after dinner, but maybe you need to stop at two o’clock. Or maybe you don’t need to have caffeine at all. If I had caffeine, my system wouldn’t know what to do with itself because I don’t drink it. Look at when you’re consuming caffeine and see if moving it up allows you to have better rest and better sleep.

Embrace Sabbath

You can have regular Sabbath days. On the seventh day, the Lord rested, right? He created the Sabbath for us as well. He wants us to have time to rest and recharge. So look at your schedule to find a day you can be intentional about slowing down, resting, and recharging every single week. 

Think about if you can stretch that out. Maybe you have longer periods of rest like a weekend. Can you think about retreats or times to get away, where it’s not about getting away to do something, it’s just to get away to rest?

You want to have physical rest. You want to think about spiritual renewal. How can you spend some time with God in that restful environment and in that restful season? 

Restful Environment at Home

I also want to encourage you to create a restful environment in your home. Design your own space whose sole purpose is for you to rest and relax. Create that space for yourself.

Limit Exposure and Overstimulation

Look at what you are exposing yourself to. Look at what you’re watching on TV, movies, what you’re listening to, and social media. You can be overstimulated by media and by information. If you can limit that, it’s going to help you be able to rest, relax, and get better sleep. 

The best thing that I did was stop watching the news, get off social media, and for the one platform that I’m on, I killed the newsfeed so I don’t have to see all the stuff popping up. I’m very intentional and specific about what I consume and when.

Boundaries

The final tip that I have for you today is boundaries. They are wonderful, awesome, and amazing. They are a gift that we should use more often. When it comes to resting, please know that saying “no” is okay. 

You’ve got to figure out your time boundaries. What boundaries can you put in place so that you are not so committed to doing things outside of your home that it’s sucking all of your energy out and not allowing you to rest? 

Same thing with your time. We talked about having a bedtime and a wake-up time, so that means that if your bedtime is 10 o’clock, there are going to things that you cannot do, or you might have to leave early to protect that time. You are worth it. Do that for yourself.

Final Thoughts on HSPs and Rest

I want to encourage you to pick one thing that I’ve talked about here today that you can implement this week so that you can have more rest and better sleep because it is really going to improve your life. 

When you’re able to show up as your best self, when you’re rested, you’re able to cope with things better. Remember, rest is a good thing. It is a gift from God, and I want you to learn how to rest well. 

I always go back to this story in the bible where the disciples are on this ship, and there’s a storm coming, and they are freaking out. They think they’re going to die. What is going on? Where’s Jesus? He’s taking a nap; he’s asleep.

Follow Jesus’s example of being able to rest even when things are going cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs in your life. You don’t have to give in to that worry, anxiety, or all of that stuff that wants to keep you from being able to rest. 

Just take a nap, sit down, put your feet up, take some deep breaths, and relax, because God is with you, God is in control, and it’s okay for you to chill out for a little bit. It’s good for you.

Other Helpful Resources:

""

Which of these tips for HSPs and rest will you try today?



Do your emotions feel too BIG to handle? Learn how to process your emotions as an HSP and introvert instead of suppressing or ignoring what your feelings are trying to tell you!

Discover 5 Steps to Managing Your BIG Emotions