The Nap Ministry

On October 13th, 2022 I stumbled across a post from The New York Times about “The Nap Bishop.” When in college, The Nap Ministry founder Tricia Hershey was constantly busy working, studying, taking care of her son, and was completely exhausted. Her overall health suffered and so did her grades. Often when she was reading for class on the couch, she would rest for just a few moments and feel much better. Just a few minutes helped her feel refreshed. This led her to napping and resting more whenever she found a spare moment. With this she also integrated other restful exercises such as taking a long bath or meditating on her train ride to and from campus.

She’s now 48 and continually encourages people to take time to rest by both sleeping and daydreaming. By dedicating extra work time to rest time, people better take care of themselves and avoid burnout. Hershey has 503k followers on Instagram and has published a book about how “rest is resistance.”

This article really resonated with me, especially as a student. There is always too much work and never enough time to do it. I’m not perfect, but I have gotten better at prioritizing sleep, taking breaks, and napping when needed. I journal at least once a week and love to color in my coloring book. Whenever I need to slow down more, I will take a bath with some lavender epsom salts. I never work when I’m eating and I make sure to always give myself a couple of hours of wind down time before heading to sleep rather than work until the moment my head hits the pillow. I didn’t used to practice these different things, but now that I do, I find myself more rested, rejuvenated, and do better work outside of my resting.

Link to article: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/13/well/live/nap-ministry-bishop-tricia-hersey.html

How do you rest? Have you heard of the nap ministry before?