As another semester closes, faculty often find themselves stretched thin, managing heavy workloads and the emotional demands of academic life. In her live NCFDD workshop Planning for Rest and Recovery: An Agile End-of-Year Reflection, Dr. Rebecca Pope-Ruark invited faculty to pause and reflect, to consider what it means to end the year with intention rather than exhaustion.
Drawing on her research on burnout and her background in Agile project management, she offers practical ways to balance productivity with restoration.
Grounding in Values
Dr. Pope-Ruark begins with the five values that shape the Agile framework: focus, courage, openness, commitment, and respect. These values provide a lens for reflection on how we work, rest, and engage with one another.
Focus asks where your attention goes and whether it aligns with what truly matters. Courage calls for recognizing your limits and protecting time for what replenishes you. Openness invites adaptability and the willingness to consider new ways of working. Commitment centers on following through on what is meaningful rather than reacting to constant urgency. Respect means offering understanding to others and to yourself, recognizing that everyone is doing the best they can.
When viewed together, these values can guide an intentional reset that balances professional goals with personal well-being.
Understanding the Stress Cycle
Dr. Pope-Ruark explains that stress itself is not the problem. The challenge comes when the body never completes the stress cycle, the natural process of encountering stress, responding to it, and finding relief. In modern academic life, new pressures often arrive before recovery from the last, keeping the body and mind in a near-constant state of strain.
She highlights emerging research on microstressors, the small, routine pressures that accumulate throughout the day. These may include unpredictable demands, digital interruptions, or subtle interpersonal tensions. Each moment feels minor, but together they deplete energy and focus.
Understanding how these cycles function allows faculty to recognize where they can intervene, to intentionally close the stress cycle rather than waiting for a break that never fully arrives.
Completing the Cycle
Rest and recovery require active participation. Dr. Pope-Ruark outlines several evidence-based ways to help the body and mind return to balance:
- Physical movement such as walking, stretching, or other gentle activity helps the body process stress hormones.
- Breathwork and mindfulness calm the nervous system.
- Positive connection through conversation, laughter, or affection restores a sense of belonging.
- Emotional expression, whether through creativity or tears, releases internal pressure.
- Community outside of work provides perspective and renewal.
These practices are not luxuries. They are essential methods for completing the body’s natural recovery process.
Active and Passive Rest
Borrowing from athletic training, Dr. Pope-Ruark distinguishes between active and passive rest. Both are necessary, but active rest often restores energy more effectively because it engages the mind and body in ways that feel meaningful.
Active rest has four qualities:
- It feels relaxing rather than demanding.
- It gives you control over your time.
- It allows for growth or learning.
- It helps you mentally detach from work.
Activities like gardening, yoga, music, crafting, or being outdoors can serve this purpose. Each offers a way to focus attention differently and restore a sense of agency.
Passive rest is equally valid. Sometimes the most effective recovery is to sleep, watch something lighthearted, or do nothing at all. Listening to what your body needs is central to both.
Reframing Rest
For many in academia, slowing down triggers guilt. Dr. Pope-Ruark distinguishes between guilt, which says I feel bad for resting, and shame, which says I am bad for resting. Both can be replaced with a more accurate understanding: rest is part of responsible practice.
Changing that mindset takes deliberate effort. Small rituals, such as brief transitions at the end of the workday or regular blocks of protected rest, can help make recovery a consistent habit. Reflective tools also support this process. The SOAR framework (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, and Results or Resources) encourages looking back with appreciation and forward with clarity. The 4 Ls—what you Liked, Learned, Lacked, and Longed for—help surface what matters most as you plan the next phase of work.
Moving Forward
Dr. Pope-Ruark closes with a reminder that rest is not a reward for finishing. It is part of the work itself. Faculty cannot control every stressor in higher education, but they can decide how to care for their own well-being. Choosing even one practice to close the stress cycle, one block of active rest to protect, or one ritual to mark transition can create real change over time.
Rest and recovery are not optional extras. They are what make sustained, meaningful work possible.
If you’re ready to pause, reflect, and plan your own recovery, you can watch Dr. Rebecca Pope-Ruark’s full workshop Planning for Rest and Recovery: An Agile End-of-Year Reflection in the NCFDD Library here.