Breathe in. Breathe out.<\/p>\n
Take a walk. Take a nap.<\/p>\n
Read a book. Listen to music.<\/p>\n
Just \u2013 be.<\/p>\n
What does rest look like for you?<\/p>\n
Shelby Houghton \u201922 (CLAS) is inviting all members of the UConn community to rest starting on Monday, April 11, with a weeklong series of events focused on promoting and encouraging rest as a means of personal wellness and social change called Rest is Revolution: UConn\u2019s Week of Reflection<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe’re in a moment of great pressure as students and members of the UConn community \u2013 pursuing active anti-racism, healing through a pandemic, returning to school or jobs, many of our plans and expectations for the future altered,\u201d says Houghton, a political science and human rights major.<\/p>\n \u201cI put Rest is Revolution<\/em> together because I saw how desperately it is needed,\u201d she explains. \u201cStudents and faculty \u2013 across the United States, but demonstrated here at UConn \u2013 are so overworked. We attach our worth to how hard we work, and I seldom see our community take time for themselves just because. I couldn’t tell you the last time I saw someone just sit without work in front of them on campus. The rest movement is an intersectional, approachable, and simple wellness, human rights, and personal event.\u201d<\/p>\n Running from April 11 through April 15, Rest is Revolution<\/em> will feature an open, drop-in rest space \u2013 described as a safe, comfortable, intentional space for people to take a moment for themselves and rest \u2013 on the Student Union Green, available to anyone in the community to take time for rest.<\/p>\n The event includes a series of hour-long guided wellness sessions, held in the Student Union, which Houghton describes as \u201ca one-of-a-kind experience.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStudents can expect an introduction to the rest movement, a conversation about how history and incredible activists have empowered the rest movement, and a guided meditation so all students can share a collective moment of rest,\u201d she says. \u201cIt’s going to be unlike anything UConn has ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n The event also features a podcast and free meditations, available on Spotify<\/a>, and other online materials \u2013 including guided meditations, body stretches, and other resources \u2013 available on the event\u2019s LinkTree<\/a>, which also hosts sign-ups for the wellness sessions.<\/p>\n The program is supported by a Fall 2021 UConn Co-op Legacy Fellowship Program Change Grant<\/a>.<\/p>\n Houghton \u2013 who says she was inspired by the rest movement, which was fostered and created by people of color in the United States, including Audre Lorde; Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; bell hooks; and Tricia Hersey \u2013 hopes that the event not only gives fellow students an opportunity to pause and focus on their own personal wellness, but also empowers students to see rest as \u201ca divine right and necessity.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cRest is social change because it challenges our ingrained feelings of unworthiness to take rest,\u201d she says. \u201cResting is a political act, whether intentional or unintentional, because you challenge the inequity, racism, sexism, homophobia, and discrimination that forces people to prove themselves and work to death. Rest as a form of social change is new to a lot of us. Many people see rest as a means to an end \u2013 resting to do more work, resting to get ready for our next responsibility, or resting because we are beyond exhausted and can’t function anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n She continues, \u201cBut everyone knows what burnout feels like, which is evidence of how powerful the rest movement has the potential to be. If everyone knows what it’s like to overwork, we can all take something out of creating restful routines and mindsets.\u201d<\/p>\n Visit <\/em>linktr.ee\/shelbyhoughton<\/em><\/a> or <\/em>@restisrevolution<\/em><\/a> on Instagram for more information.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A weeklong series of events focused on promoting and encouraging rest as a means of personal wellness and social change<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":134,"featured_media":184069,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2226,2231,2235],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2168],"class_list":["post-184064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-clas","category-health-well-being","category-today-homepage"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 11:20:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/134"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184064"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184064\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184077,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184064\/revisions\/184077"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/184069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184064"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=184064"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=184064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}