In recent years, “resilience” has become something of a modern virtue. We are encouraged to learn to bounce back, to cope, to keep going in the face of challenge. And in many ways, this is valuable. Life asks things of us, and the ability to respond with steadiness matters.
But there is a subtle trap. In our collective drive for efficiency and productivity, we may have begun to interpret resilience as the ability to keep going no matter what, to push through, to optimise, to endure. In doing so, we risk overlooking something essential: the role of recovery.
The missing half of the equation
In the world of sports and physical training, this lesson has already been learned. Performance does not improve simply through more effort. In fact, without adequate recovery, performance declines. Overtraining leads to fatigue, injury and burnout.
Elite athletes now understand that recovery is an active, essential component of progress, not a passive afterthought. Paradoxically, adaptation doesn’t happens during exertion, but in the space that follows it.
And yet, in the rest of life, we often behave as though this principle does not apply. We move from task to task, from screen to screen, from demand to demand. Even our attempts at rest can become another form of activity—scrolling, consuming, filling the space. As neuroscientist Anne-Laure Le Cunff explores in her recent writing, rest alone does not necessarily restore energy. Inserting moments of passivity into our productivity in order to keep pushing through does not always build resilience. Sometimes, it simply deepens exhaustion.
Lessons from the living world
Around the time of Earth Day in April each year, many of us are reminded of the consequences of a similar pattern in our relationship with the natural world.
In agriculture, decades of striving for maximum yield have led to soil depletion in many parts of the world. Land that is continuously pushed without time to regenerate gradually loses its vitality. Regenerative farming practices are now reintroducing something that was once taken for granted: the importance of cycles, of rest, of allowing the system to restore itself.
Far from being separate from the natural world, our bodies are expressions of the same living processes. Perhaps a better way to think of it is that we are nature experiencing itself, not machines operating within it. And yet, we often treat our bodies as if they were systems to be optimised and driven, rather than lived experiences to be listened to. Philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty put it like this: our bodies are the very ground of our experience, not an object we possess.
An inner conflict at the root
In his hemispheres theory, Iain McGilchrist, posits that our brains contain two distinct and incompatible ways of seeing and attending to the world. The left-hemisphere focuses on details, mechanisms and efficiency, dealing in certainty. The right hemisphere provides a broad holistic, connected and contextual view and embraces complexity.
McGilchrist sees a steady shift over time towards increasing left-hemisphere dominance in the western world, creating our modern era defined by efficiency, control and productivity. With the left-hemisphere mode in charge, it is perhaps unsurprising that recovery (subtle, non-linear, and not easily measured) gets squeezed out.
From rest to recovery
This brings us back to an important distinction: rest is not always recovery.
We may stop, but remain mentally active. We may sit down, but continue to process, plan or consume information. The nervous system remains engaged, even if the body is still.
Recovery, in contrast, involves a shift in state. It allows the nervous system to move towards parasympathetic dominance, the mode associated with restoration, digestion, repair and integration.
This is not simply about doing less. It is about being differently.
A different relationship with ourselves
Sophrology offers a practical way into this shift.
Through simple practices involving breath, gentle movement, guided imagery and embodied awareness, it supports the regulation of the nervous system and the expansion of what is sometimes called the “window of tolerance”, our capacity to remain present and balanced, even in the face of challenge.
Perhaps more importantly, it creates space. Space to pause, and notice. Space to experience moments of quiet without immediately filling them.
Each Sophrology exercise is followed by a pause – a minute or maybe two. These are moments of integration. Moments of presence when we attend to our bodies, listening. This is the time of recovery, of adaptation.
In these moments, something subtle but important can emerge: a sense of ease, of connection, even of quiet joy. Not the result of achieving or completing something, but arising simply from being.
Towards a gentler rhythm
If resilience is to count for anything meaningful in today’s world, perhaps we need to redefine it.
Instead of the ability to keep going indefinitely, or bounce back quickly, we can understand resilience as the capacity to move in rhythm—between effort and recovery, engagement and rest, doing and being. A dynamic balance.
Recovery is then not simply in service of ever-increasing levels of efficiency and productivity. Recovery is the main event. Recovery is presence, allowing new perspectives to emerge and be integrated. Recovery facilitates adaptation. Recovery is meaning-making in crisis. Recovery may reveal new ways to challenge a system that no longer serves.
As we begin to explore new ways of supporting wellbeing, whether in education, healthcare, or the workplace, there is an opportunity to reintroduce this missing half of the equation.
To value it differently, recognising that prioritising recovery is the path towards wholeness and growth, and much needed positive change for people and planet.