"I feel so tired after the treatment… can I rest for a while?"
A lady in her seventies asked me this after her session. She'd come in for shoulder pain, and that day I'd worked on realigning her whole structure, followed by acupuncture and microcurrent to restart cellular repair. Afterwards, she felt deeply tired.
I said: "Of course." There's always a quiet space in the clinic where clients can stay an extra twenty to thirty minutes, letting the body finish the repair process that's just been switched on.
Healing happens in rest
Treatment opens a door — it signals the body to begin repairing. But the actual repair happens when the body feels safe enough to slow down. This is the "rest and repair" state of the nervous system, and it's where real recovery takes place. Rushing straight back into a busy day can cut that process short.
There's a physiology behind this. Your autonomic nervous system has two main gears: the sympathetic ("fight or flight"), which mobilises energy to get you through the day, and the parasympathetic ("rest and digest"), which is when the body actually repairs tissue, calms inflammation, digests, and restores. The catch is that the body will only drop into that repair gear when it senses it is safe. So rest after treatment isn't doing nothing — it's giving the nervous system the one condition it needs to do its most important work.
You're like a phone, fully charged each morning
I often tell my clients: each morning we wake up like a fully charged phone. Every movement, and every way we use our body, affects how quickly the battery drains. Do too much at once, and the battery suffers. But move in a way that flows naturally and conserves energy, and the same battery can power both repair and daily life — for much longer.
There's a second half to the analogy: repair is what happens overnight, when the phone is plugged in and left alone. If you're constantly "using the screen" — pushing through, staying switched on, never quite stopping — the body never gets its charging time. Deep sleep especially is when much of the body's tissue repair and clearing-out happens. Protecting your rest is protecting your repair.
This client is a caregiver. Every day she looks after the people around her, rarely stopping to feel her own needs. After she rested, we looked at how she gets up from lying down — a movement she found hard — corrected the pattern, and added some gentle leg strengthening so she could move with less effort at home.
Learning to use your body well is learning to honour your own energy. And sometimes, the most important step is simply allowing yourself to stop and rest.
References & further reading
- Porges SW. The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-Regulation. New York: Norton; 2011.
- Sapolsky RM. Why Zebras Don't Get Ulcers. 3rd ed. New York: Holt; 2004.
- Walker MP. Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams. New York: Scribner; 2017.
For education only, and not medical advice. Everyone recovers at their own pace; if tiredness is severe or persistent, please check in with your doctor.