Why Some Veterans Struggle with Rest
The couch is comfortable, the afternoon is free, and the body still sits with being on edge. A show is on but barely being watched, attention keeps drifting toward the garage, the phone, the unanswered email, or whatever else could be taken care of instead. After a while, resting starts to feel less like taking time off and more like wasting it.
Many veterans describe being exhausted but unable to actually settle.
Sleep may stay light, weekends can feel restless, and an open afternoon creates an urge to find something useful to do. Family members may see someone who simply does not know how to relax, and the veteran may eventually come to the same conclusion. The problem is that rest in the military often meant something very different.
It usually happened between demands rather than outside of them. You slept when the schedule allowed, ate when there was time, and took whatever downtime was available knowing that it could end quickly. Even on quieter days, there was usually another task coming, someone who might need something, or a reason to stay aware of what was happening around you. Rest was temporary and often conditional, and the body learned to stay partly ready even when there was technically time to stop. That can become difficult to turn off later.
At home, nobody may be waiting for anything. There is no next shift, no formation, no constant texts in the text thread, and no one telling you when you need to be ready again. For some veterans, that should feel like freedom but instead creates discomfort. The body has spent years learning that downtime is something that happens before the next demand, so having no obvious demand coming can feel unfamiliar in its own way. Rest also used to happen inside a shared system of understanding. Someone else might be awake while you slept, responsibilities rotated, or other people were nearby and paying attention. Even when conditions were difficult, there was often a clear sense that you were not the only person responsible for noticing what happened next.
Civilian rest can feel much more individual. If something needs to be handled, there may be no obvious person who has it covered. That can make doing nothing feel strangely irresponsible, even when nothing actually needs to be done. There is often another layer too. Many people learned some experience of the rule that rest comes after the work is finished. The problem is that civilian work may not finish in the same way. There is always another email, another house project, another errand, another bill, or something else that could be improved. If rest has to be earned by completing everything first, it may never feel fully allowed. Rest can also feel unsafe for trauma-shaped reasons, and the two patterns can overlap.
Some veterans respond by staying busy. A free Saturday becomes a project day, the garage gets cleaned, something gets repaired, errands get added, or work continues long after it needs to. Others go in the opposite direction and shut down completely, spending hours on the couch or in front of a screen without feeling any more rested afterward. Both can look like downtime. Internally, they can feel very different. Rest and going offline are different states, especially when the body has learned to move between constant readiness and exhaustion without spending much time in between.
This is part of why telling someone to “just relax” usually does not help. The problem may not be that they do not understand what rest is. Their body may simply not trust the conditions around it enough to settle easily, or it may still expect rest to end the moment something requires attention.
Learning to rest again can start very small. It might mean sitting outside for ten minutes without turning the time into another task, leaving part of a Saturday intentionally unplanned, or noticing the urge to get up and do something without immediately following it. At first, that may bring more tension rather than less.
Therapy can help when the difficulty resting is connected to hypervigilance, deployment experiences, or older patterns of staying ready. Deep Brain Reorienting may be useful when stillness quickly brings the body back into alertness, especially when the reaction feels immediate and physical rather than driven by a clear thought. DBR works with early orienting and defensive responses that can remain active long after the original danger has passed.
EMDR, Brainspotting, DBR, and Ego State Therapy can also be used as part of broader nervous-system-focused trauma work, depending on what is maintaining the difficulty. EMDR may be particularly useful when certain deployment memories, losses, or experiences still carry a strong emotional or physical charge. Brainspotting may help when distress is experienced more somatically or is difficult to put into words.
Ego State Therapy can be especially useful when there is an internal conflict around rest. One part of the person may be exhausted and want to stop, while another remains convinced that slowing down means becoming careless, weak, or unprepared. In that situation, the work is not simply teaching relaxation. It is understanding why staying ready still feels necessary and helping those protective responses recognize that the conditions around them have changed.
For veterans, this can also be addressed within trauma therapy specifically oriented toward veterans and first responders, where hypervigilance, sleep disruption, irritability, emotional numbing, and the difficulty of standing down after years of readiness can be worked with in context rather than treated as isolated symptoms.
The practical side matters too. Building predictable routines, sharing responsibilities at home, finding meaningful work and relationships, and knowing that something does not have to be urgent in order to matter can all make rest easier to tolerate. The same difficulty relaxing can show up in high-functioning people, especially when usefulness and productivity have become closely tied to identity.
Progress is usually uneven. A restful weekend may feel natural one month and impossible the next. Stress can bring the old readiness back quickly, especially during family problems, work changes, poor sleep, or other periods when life feels less predictable. Over time, the difference is often not that the body stops reacting altogether, but the shift is that the reaction does not have to control the whole afternoon. A noise outside may still pull attention toward the window, but the body can settle again a little sooner than it used to.
This article is intended for general informational purposes and isn't a substitute for individualized clinical assessment. If rest has become difficult, or if sleep has stayed disrupted for a long stretch, a licensed therapist or physician can help identify what's happening and what will help.
Nathanael "Nando" Schlecht, LAC, is a trauma therapist in Tucson, AZ, and an Army veteran, specializing in complex trauma, nervous system regulation, EMDR, and Brainspotting/DBR/Ego State work. He works with veterans, active duty service members, and first responders, offering telehealth across Arizona including Phoenix, Scottsdale, Flagstaff, and Sedona. Learn more at nandotherapy.com, or to inquire about working together, visit /therapy-contact.
Related Reading:
The Difference Between Quiet That Rests and Quiet That Watches
How outward stillness can hide a nervous system that remains alert, scanning, and prepared to respond even when nothing is happening.
The Difference Between Rest and Going Offline
How genuine settling differs from exhaustion, numbing, or shutting down when the nervous system has spent too long moving between readiness and depletion.
Why You Feel on Edge Even When Nothing Is Happening
How a nervous system shaped by repeated demands or threat can keep preparing for the next problem even after the environment has become safer.
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