I’ve spent the last week amongst the trees at Woburn Center Parcs in Bedfordshire. Having two Center Parcs complexes equal distance from our home makes going there for a short break fairly easy, but before I carry on I need to highlight that this week’s column is not paid for by or affiliated to Center Parcs in any way. I’m also not recommending Center Parcs as a place that all of us should go for a rest. We all have our own happy places that we go to for rest and that’s a good thing.
I know I’ve said this before, but one of my weaknesses is working a lot and that’s probably why I found my health condition and subsequent early retirement quite hard to get used to. I confess that I am someone who enjoys working. I find the interactions with everybody I know (and don’t know) immensely enjoyable. I love creating things and find all of the things we do together life affirming. But that doesn’t mean I don’t also need to find time to rest.
It’s only by regular periods of rest that each of us has the energy to continue and to achieve what we do. It’s tired minds and bodies that make mistakes that can lead to accidents, tragedies and deaths.
Georges Vigarello’s ‘History of Fatigue’, explores fatigue from the Middle Ages to the present day. Vigarello’s study looks at how notions of fatigue have evolved over time. In the Middle Ages a fatigued warrior was celebrated, whilst a fatigued commoner was despised.
In the 19th century, worker fatigue started to dominate political concerns as the ever increasing pace of work increased. The drive to raise output, reduce production costs and improve efficiency started to frame worker fatigue as a significant barrier to the prosperity of the ruling class.
Falling worker output due to fatigue still dominates the concerns of our rulers today. However, our fatigue is muted and less visible today. Mental overload has replaced physical overload and fatigue has become much more hidden in a time of remote working. Fatigue may be a psychological challenge rather than a physical challenge for the majority of the population.
And yet there are at least two elements from Vigarello’s work that I think are very relevant to today. The first, is that we perceive our leaders (our modern day warriors) in politics and business as people who have conquered fatigue and have a superhuman constitution that enables them to do things that the majority of people would be too exhausted to do. Whilst at the same time any frontline worker who needs time off to rest and recover because of the exhausting nature of their work is seen as unworthy of our support, care and attention. It would seem to me that we haven’t progressed much beyond Middle Age perceptions of who we value when they are fatigued and who we do not.
Which makes me realise the importance of rest and recovery time for all of us. It is not good warrior or commoner behaviour to still be working at 10 o’clock at night. Yet we celebrate the stamina of warriors working late into the evening and castigate commoners who can’t get everything done in the time allotted to them.
If we are to create a society that values warriors and commoners equally and that is fit for purpose, now and in the future, we need to see time for rest as an essential part of reducing fatigue and of enabling people to recover mentally and physically so that they are able to work more effectively. Everyone needs enough free time and needs to be paid well enough to enable them to rest and take holidays.
With the government pushing to get more people into work, it needs to think carefully about the population’s balance between work and rest. They need to ensure that everyone (warrior and commoner) has equal time to improve their well-being through rest in whatever ways work for them.
I still need to learn how to put this lesson into practice for myself. How would you rate your own ability to take time out to rest? Do you value time taken out to rest when you are fatigued? Do you celebrate that fatigue or try to hide it from others? Are you more warrior or commoner in your approach to work and rest?
Jim Thomas
April 2025
A History of Fatigue. From the Middle Ages to the Present. (2022) Georges Vigarello (English Edition) Polity Press.
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