Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey (Morocco)

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.

Tricia Hersey (Morocco 1998-99)

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.

Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto
by Tricia Mersey (Morocco 1998-99)
Little, Brown Spark Publisher
October 2022
224 pages
$13.99 (Kindle); $21.99 (Hardcover); $43.65 (Audio CD)

Tricia Hersey is founder of  The Nap Ministry and creator of the Rest is Resistance framework. She has created rest experiences, train organizations, lecture, create public art installations and lead a congregation of over 500,000 followers on social media to a rest resistance.

She is a nonprofit professional with over 15 years of “roll of your sleeves”​ program management, program coordination, fundraising, community outreach and training experience with small and large nonprofit organizations. She started her career, as she writes, “as a Peace Corps Volunteer and have been committed to organizations that have a mission of changing the world one community at a time.”