By Chandra Aiesha, Restorative Care Practitioner and Founder, Queen By Nature Wellness
Updated
Rest House was created because I believe rest is essential.
Not only when we're exhausted. Not only when we're caring for someone else. Not only when we've earned it.
Rest is part of how we live well.
I don't mean rest as a reward, or as a repair job after life has worn us down. I mean rest as something that simply has a place. Pause has a place. Stillness has a place. Sleep, leisure, quiet, warmth, and time where nothing is required of us all have a place.
Rest House is one way I have learned to make that belief tangible.
The tea is ready. The room is warm. The chair is waiting.
A room prepared for you. Somewhere to sit. Somewhere to lie down. The sauna is warming, the MooMoo is welcome, and there are plants all around you. You can talk if you want to talk, or be quiet if you want to be quiet. You don't have to accomplish anything for a little while.
That is Rest House.
Where this belief comes from
I have spent more than 22 years caring for people through nursing. But my understanding of rest did not come only from watching other people need it.
I had to rest too.
There were seasons when I slowed down, stepped away, traveled, retreated, and allowed myself to pause, including a sacred pause before Queen By Nature reopened this year. I experienced restoration in those periods. They were not failures, and they were not detours. They shaped how I think about wellness.
That experience influenced Queen By Nature Wellness. It influenced Wellness Vacay Retreats and the rest and restoration experiences I create. And eventually, it helped shape Rest House.
So I am not standing outside of this, telling other people to rest. I have lived some of it myself. The belief came first. Rest House gives it somewhere physical to live.
Who Rest House is for
Queen By Nature primarily serves women, and our communal Rest House days are created with women in mind. I am a woman, and this is the community I have built this sanctuary around.
That is a different statement from saying rest belongs to women. It doesn't. Rest is essential for everyone. Men rest. Women rest. Caregivers and parents rest. People who are busy rest, and so do people who are not. Nobody has to be diminished for Queen By Nature to intentionally make restorative space for women.
What research says about rest
"Rest" is an everyday word, and there is no single study of it. What researchers have studied are specific parts of it, like sleep, relaxation, and leisure. I want to share a little of that here without making it say more than it does.
Sleep is the most basic form of rest. The National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute notes that "the way you feel while you are awake depends in part on what happens while you are sleeping," and that ongoing sleep deficiency can affect how well people think, react, learn, and get along with others.
Researchers also describe something called the relaxation response. The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health describes it as slower breathing, lower blood pressure, and a reduced heart rate, the opposite of the stress response. Studies of specific relaxation techniques, like breathing exercises and progressive muscle relaxation, have found some modest benefits, and the Center is clear that much of that research has limits.
Everyday restorative time has been studied, too. In a study of about 1,400 adults led by psychologist Sarah Pressman, people who spent more time on enjoyable leisure activities, such as hobbies, time with others, and time in nature, tended to report better mood and greater life satisfaction, and had healthier readings on measures like blood pressure. The authors note that this kind of study cannot prove the leisure caused those differences.
None of this is a promise about what a day at Rest House will do. It is a reminder that sleep, pause, quiet, and enjoyment are not extras. They have always had a place in a life lived well.
Rest has always been more than lying down
The wellness industry did not invent restoration. The people who raised us knew about it long before anybody put a price tag on it.
It looked like sitting around a kitchen table after dinner. Porches in the evening. A cup of tea with your grandmother. Hours at the beauty shop or the barbershop, where you came out looking good and feeling a little lighter. Your auntie's house on a Sunday. A warm bath. A garden somebody tended for years. Stories passed around a room. Sitting next to someone you love and not needing to say a thing.
I am not romanticizing how hard a lot of our elders had it. I am saying they knew something about gathering, warmth, and quiet company that we are still learning to make room for.
Rest House comes from that. It is the kitchen table and the auntie's house, with a womb spa, a tea bar, and a sauna out back.
What Bali reminded me
Through Wellness Vacay Retreats, my sister brand, I have spent time in Bali and throughout Southeast Asia. What stayed with me was not a spa menu. It was the pace.
Places there are built for lingering. Greenery everywhere. Rooms that open to the outside. Warm air, water nearby, tea in the afternoon, somewhere to sit and stay a while. The environment itself tells you to slow down.
There is research on this feeling, too. A study of nearly 20,000 people in England found that those who spent at least two hours a week in nature were more likely to report good health and well-being than those who spent none, whether those two hours came all at once or in shorter visits. The researchers are careful to say this shows an association, not proof of cause.
Travel reminded me that an environment can give you permission to slow down. My own periods of rest taught me what can happen when you actually accept that permission. Rest House is my way of bringing some of that home.
It is not pretending to be Bali. You will see the influence in the plants, the open-air Sacred Lounge, the purple couch, and the way the tea is set out, but it is its own place, built for staying awhile.
Warmth, Outside
One of the heat experiences at Rest House is our outdoor infrared sauna, tucked into the Sacred Lounge. It uses infrared heat rather than steam, so the experience is a dry, steady warmth. The sauna includes chromotherapy lighting, so you can choose a color atmosphere while you sit, breathe, and settle in.
What I love most is that the sauna is outside. You can step out, cool down, get some water, sit for a while, and move between warmth and rest without feeling like you have to rush through a session.
That is more in line with how I want Rest House to feel. You are not being moved from treatment to treatment. You have time to actually enjoy where you are.
So what actually happens at Rest House?
Rest House is the communal rest experience at Queen By Nature. On Rest House days, the sanctuary opens for women to slow down and be cared for.
You come in through the Arrival Lounge, and the tea is already there. You can settle in with a cup, bring a book, or stretch out and nap. The outdoor Sacred Lounge, with its purple couch and plants, is another place to pause. The sanctuary also offers herbal steam sauna, infrared sauna, sacred yoni steam, and a 4D massage chair. Each Rest House day lists what is included.
What matters most is how the time feels while you are here. You can be quiet. You can find yourself in a good conversation. You can come on your own, or bring your sister, your friend, or your mama. You can become familiar with the space at your own pace. Nobody is rushing you from one room to the next.
And yes, BYOM. Bring Your Own MooMoo. Comfort is welcome here.
Current dates, pricing, and what each day includes live on the Rest House page.
You do not have to be exhausted enough to earn this
I want to say this plainly. You do not need to prove that you worked hard enough to rest. Rest does not have to be earned through overwork, caregiving, burnout, illness, or depletion.
You can come because you want tea. Because you want heat. Because you have three free hours. Because you don't want to be at home right now. Because you want to read. Because you want company. Because you want no company. Because it is Saturday.
That is enough of a reason. It always was.
Other ways to spend time with us
For more personal time, my Womb Spa sessions offer one-on-one warmth and rest. You can also compare the heat experiences to see how herbal steam, infrared sauna, and sacred yoni steam each feel. For something lighter, Tea Time & Chill is a community evening of tea and conversation, and Sundays at Rest House brings women together for heart-centered conversation.
Come sit down
Rest doesn't always need an itinerary.
You don't have to accomplish something while you're here. You don't have to prove you needed the break. And you don't have to arrive depleted enough to deserve one.
Rest is essential. Rest House is simply one of the ways I've chosen to make room for it.
That is really what I wanted this place to be. Somewhere you can come sit down.
I would love to welcome you.
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A note on care: Queen By Nature is a wellness sanctuary, not a medical facility. Heat and steam experiences are not right for every body in every season. If you are pregnant, recently postpartum, or managing a health condition, please check with your healthcare provider, and we will talk through what fits your visit. Rest House experiences support rest and intentional self-care. They do not diagnose, treat, or replace medical care. The research mentioned here is about sleep, relaxation, leisure, and time in nature among the people who were studied. It is not a claim about the effects of Rest House or any experience offered here.
Sources
- Why Is Sleep Important?, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health
- Relaxation Techniques: What You Need To Know, National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, National Institutes of Health
- Association of Enjoyable Leisure Activities With Psychological and Physical Well-Being, Sarah D. Pressman et al., Psychosomatic Medicine, 2009
- Spending at least 120 minutes a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing, Mathew P. White et al., Scientific Reports, 2019