Psychology & Counseling
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Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto
Disrupt and push back against capitalism and white supremacy. In this book, Tricia Hersey, aka The Nap Bishop, encourages us to connect to the liberating power of rest, daydreaming, and naps as a foundation for healing and justice.
What would it be like to live in a well-rested world? Far too many of us have claimed productivity as the cornerstone of success. Brainwashed by capitalism, we subject our bodies and minds to work at an unrealistic, damaging, and machine‑level pace –– feeding into the same engine that enslaved millions into brutal labor for its own relentless benefit.
In Rest Is Resistance, Tricia Hersey, aka the Nap Bishop, casts an illuminating light on our troubled relationship with rest and how to imagine and dream our way to a future where rest is exalted. Our worth does not reside in how much we produce, especially not for a system that exploits and dehumanizes us. Rest, in its simplest form, becomes an act of resistance and a reclaiming of power because it asserts our most basic humanity. We are enough. The systems cannot have us.
Rest Is Resistance is rooted in spiritual energy and centered in Black liberation, womanism, somatics, and Afrofuturism. With captivating storytelling and practical advice, all delivered in Hersey's lyrical voice and informed by her deep experience in theology, activism, and performance art, Rest Is Resistance is a call to action, a battle cry, a field guide, and a manifesto for all of us who are sleep deprived, searching for justice, and longing to be liberated from the oppressive grip of Grind Culture.
What would it be like to live in a well-rested world? Far too many of us have claimed productivity as the cornerstone of success. Brainwashed by capitalism, we subject our bodies and minds to work at an unrealistic, damaging, and machine‑level pace –– feeding into the same engine that enslaved millions into brutal labor for its own relentless benefit.
In Rest Is Resistance, Tricia Hersey, aka the Nap Bishop, casts an illuminating light on our troubled relationship with rest and how to imagine and dream our way to a future where rest is exalted. Our worth does not reside in how much we produce, especially not for a system that exploits and dehumanizes us. Rest, in its simplest form, becomes an act of resistance and a reclaiming of power because it asserts our most basic humanity. We are enough. The systems cannot have us.
Rest Is Resistance is rooted in spiritual energy and centered in Black liberation, womanism, somatics, and Afrofuturism. With captivating storytelling and practical advice, all delivered in Hersey's lyrical voice and informed by her deep experience in theology, activism, and performance art, Rest Is Resistance is a call to action, a battle cry, a field guide, and a manifesto for all of us who are sleep deprived, searching for justice, and longing to be liberated from the oppressive grip of Grind Culture.
Editorial Reviews
"Rest Is Resistance left me feeling elated. This book reminds us that we are in charge of our restoration. In these pages, Tricia has offered us an invitation to take our power back." ―Alexandra Elle, author of After the Rain and How We Heal
"Sometimes the window is open and a breeze comes through singing a sweet song: it is nap time. Grandmother sits on the front porch; grandpapa cuts the grass. It is a song. You nap. I nap. The angels hug us. A book settles beside us. Rest Is Resistance. It is a war we will win."―Nikki Giovanni, Poet
"With Rest Is Resistance, Tricia Hersey helps us understand that rest is how we can sustain ourselves as we awaken to the truth of the toxic systems of our times. She is not ahead of or above us in this journey, but right here in the midst of social media addiction and overwork and systemic frustration, shouting that she can see an opening. She offers us rest not instead of the incredible work we are doing, but as a way to undergird all our efforts against capitalism and white supremacy. She shows us that our dream space is sacred, and rest is how we reclaim access to the wisdom there. Naps and all kinds of rest are portals through which we return to ourselves. Tricia, sounding like an ancestor who is DONE seeing us suffer, is inviting us to join her and step on through."―adrienne maree brown, author of Emergent Strategy and Pleasure Activism
"If the rude stillness of rest is a sermon, Tricia Hersey is its underground prophet. Tricia's fierce insistence that rest is resistance is more than a plea for us to take occasional vacations, and nothing less than a spell masterfully crafted to evacuate us from the settlement politics of capture. Read this book. Then sleep, irreverently, knowing you shake worlds as you do." ―Báyò Akómoláfé, Ph.D., author of These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity's Search for Home
"Vivid, deeply researched and moving… Hersey's manifesto towards radical restoration is lifegiving"―Glory Edim, author of On Girlhood and Well-Read Black Girl
"Tricia Hersey's Nap Ministry changed my life. Rest Is Resistance
"Sometimes the window is open and a breeze comes through singing a sweet song: it is nap time. Grandmother sits on the front porch; grandpapa cuts the grass. It is a song. You nap. I nap. The angels hug us. A book settles beside us. Rest Is Resistance. It is a war we will win."―Nikki Giovanni, Poet
"With Rest Is Resistance, Tricia Hersey helps us understand that rest is how we can sustain ourselves as we awaken to the truth of the toxic systems of our times. She is not ahead of or above us in this journey, but right here in the midst of social media addiction and overwork and systemic frustration, shouting that she can see an opening. She offers us rest not instead of the incredible work we are doing, but as a way to undergird all our efforts against capitalism and white supremacy. She shows us that our dream space is sacred, and rest is how we reclaim access to the wisdom there. Naps and all kinds of rest are portals through which we return to ourselves. Tricia, sounding like an ancestor who is DONE seeing us suffer, is inviting us to join her and step on through."―adrienne maree brown, author of Emergent Strategy and Pleasure Activism
"If the rude stillness of rest is a sermon, Tricia Hersey is its underground prophet. Tricia's fierce insistence that rest is resistance is more than a plea for us to take occasional vacations, and nothing less than a spell masterfully crafted to evacuate us from the settlement politics of capture. Read this book. Then sleep, irreverently, knowing you shake worlds as you do." ―Báyò Akómoláfé, Ph.D., author of These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity's Search for Home
"Vivid, deeply researched and moving… Hersey's manifesto towards radical restoration is lifegiving"―Glory Edim, author of On Girlhood and Well-Read Black Girl
"Tricia Hersey's Nap Ministry changed my life. Rest Is Resistance
Readers Top Reviews
Jamie Marich
Laying down. Candles lit. A powerful & poetic call inward. Lay down and listen with your body, spirit and heart. Through Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto, Hersey supports us in undoing the harm of colonization, capitalism & all of the other systems of oppression we navigate daily. Tricia Hersey is the Nap Bishop we all need in our lives. I will be reading & listening this over and over again, as a support with my unlearning. Thank you, Tricia Hersey @thenapministry kinanâskomitin (I’m grateful for you), Dr. Melissa Jay
Kamala Griffith
As I read this book I keep feeling an inordinate amount of anxiety which makes me realize how indoctrinated I am in white, colonial, productivity culture. My constant busyness and productivity is making me sick and hurting my family and yet the thought of just *stopping* makes me slightly nauseous and very anxious. Tricia, thank you for showing us the productivity disease we all have that keeps us from being our authentic selves! Grateful.
New Yorker
Excellent book. We need this book. If we learn anything as people ask for rights as workers long denied by grind culture capitalism. Rest takes us out of the system created on plantations. We are truly divine as she writes. We have to break the cycle and free ourselves and see rest as reparations our ancestors earned for us. No more feeling guilty for rest. I’ve learned an important lesson that will take restructuring my life and will be with me for the rest of my days. A necessary book for all in the grind. Breaking free is possible.
Linda Sivertsen
What a sacred book, with holy ah-ha's on every page. I slept more in one day after finishing it than in the previous two. I took a 10-minute nap between errands in the post office parking lot (heaven). After lunch, I took a nap on the couch w/ the dogs. After dinner, I went to bed early. As a naturally productive, high-energy person, I wasn't aware of the subtle ways Grind Culture has gripped me. This book is life-changing, a total page-turner. I wish I could buy a million copies. It's so easy to treat our bodies as machines (especially considering this country's inhumane, sleep-starved history, which the author outlines), but we can disconnect from the madness. I highly recommend you also download the audiobook. Tricia’s voice is hypnotic and beautiful.
J Monsef
I love this book. It is bold, and comforting at the same time. It is challenging, but supportive. It is unlike anything I've read before. Reading it feels like a spiritual practice in preparation for social change.
