Exhausted but Refuse to Rest One of the strangest things about exhaustion is that I often do not respond to it logically. You would expect a tired human being to simply lie down, sleep, recover, and feel better. Sometimes that happens. Physical exhaustion after healthy effort can lead to deep, satisfying rest. The body collapses into bed and the mind quietly shuts down like an old machine finally allowed to cool. But there is another kind of exhaustion where rest somehow stops feeling restful. You sit on the couch but cannot relax. You scroll your phone instead of sleeping. You are tired all day and somehow even more tired at night. The body wants rest, yet the nervous system behaves as if stopping were dangerous. I used to wonder about that a lot, especially during periods when I felt emotionally burned out. There were evenings when I was so exhausted that even making tea felt like unnecessary mountaineering, yet instead of going to sleep, I would continue staring in...