How to Overcome Restlessness (10 Powerful Strategies)

Restlessness. It’s so common that it often avoids our detection.

Restlessness leads to irritability. And we’ll do anything to get rid of this feeling.

For this reason, restlessness is at the core of many of our irrational behaviors and addictive tendencies.

Depth psychology and humanistic psychology offer insights into the true cause of feeling restless and how to overcome restlessness.

By the end of this guide, you’ll be armed with practical and effective strategies to combat restlessness without medication, sedation, or escape.

Let’s dive in …

What is Restlessness?

Restlessness is a form of neurosis. Neurosis is excessive and irrational anxiety or obsession. It’s a sign of mental imbalance. That is, the root problem is in the mind itself.

Neurosis produces unnecessary stress that often leads to depression and feelings of helplessness.

Restlessness implies an inability to be still—to come to rest, to be able to stay present, or to fully enjoy periods of reverie, wandering, and inactivity. (All of these qualities represent aspects of positive mental health, as psychologist Abraham Maslow and others have highlighted.)

Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung called restlessness the primary neurosis of our time—and he made that observation over 60 years ago.

I believe his observation is even more accurate today than it was then. Global research on anxiety disorders published in Psychological Medicine confirms this: Anxiety is on the rise around the world.1Baxter, A., Scott, K., Vos, T., & Whiteford, H. (2013). Global prevalence of anxiety disorders: A systematic review and meta-regression. Psychological Medicine, 43(5), 897-910. doi:10.1017/S003329171200147X

Are You Feeling Restless? Here are Common Signs …

Signs of restlessness abound in our modern world:

  • A continuous need to be doing something (working, eating, drinking, watching, checking your phone or social media, etc.)
  • Tossing and turning at night, having a restless sleep
  • An obsession with the new and novel
  • Edginess and agitation that lead to emotional outbursts
  • Physical pain and numbness in various regions of your body

We can observe cultural trends that reinforce our restlessness. To call out a few:

  • A materialistic, consumer- and brand-driven culture
  • An obsession with image and bodily appearance
  • The eternal pursuit to accumulate more money, titles, and things
  • Parents chauffeuring their kids to an endless procession of activities (including “play dates”)
  • A collective addiction to social media

It’s profoundly difficult to avoid feelings of restlessness in modern life.

Discovering the Source of Restlessness

Most medical websites suggest that the cause of restlessness is some biochemical imbalance or medical-related issue.

While that’s possible, in my experience, biochemistry is more often an effect and not a cause. This is known insight for anyone who explores depth psychology and who gets to know their psyche.

Disorganization in the psyche itself is usually the root cause of these mental disturbances.

Jung believed that restlessness is a symptom of people who are not actualizing their potential, people who are living in discord with their true self.

In The Way of the Dream, Jungian analyst Marie-Louise von Franz explains,

“Restlessness is caused by a surplus of bottled-up energy, which makes us fuss around all the time because we are not connected with the dream world or the unconscious. That energy can take the form of an all-pervading anxiety, a fear that somewhere, something dark is lurking and might happen at any minute.”

We become anxious about nothing at all. Underlying anxiety becomes a standard part of our daily existence, often accompanied by feelings of irritability, aggressiveness, or meaninglessness.

According to Jungian psychology, this anxiety brought on by an internal disconnection is the root cause of restlessness.

Disconnection from Dreams: The Cause of Restlessness?

Can Jung and von Franz be right?

Can being disconnected from the dream world be the source of our restlessness?

To better understand how this might be so, we need to take a quick look at how the Buddhist and Hindu traditions view dreams.

From their philosophy, there are four basic levels of reality:

  1. The Gross: The physical realm
  2. The Subtle: The dream world
  3. The Causal: Deep sleep
  4. Nonduality

We are most familiar with the gross world. It’s the 3-dimensional plane from which our egos operate in the waking state.

The subtle realm is the dimension of our dreams and imagination.

So here’s where things get interesting: while we might believe dreams “aren’t real,” from the perspective of these traditions, the dream state is more real than our physical reality.

Consider if this is true, and we’re primarily disconnected from this dream world, wouldn’t that be an obvious source of our restlessness?

Maslow’s Insights on Restlessness

Interestingly, psychologist Abraham Maslow’s findings are consistent with Jung’s.

While Maslow’s field focused on treating mental illness, he chose to study positive mental health. But he ran into a problem.

He had a difficult time locating enough subjects that exhibited signs of positive mental health.

As he formulated his theory of human behavior, he slowly discovered a select few subjects whom he termed “self-actualizing individuals.”

From the perspective of Maslow’s well-known Hierarchy of Needs, anyone who is still actively pursuing their basic human needs—biological, safety, belonging, and esteem—in adulthood is, by definition, neurotic.

These unmet needs create internal tensions that trigger anxiety, depression, and restlessness.

Maslow’s findings along with entire fields of research from humanistic psychology, developmental psychology, and transpersonal psychology suggest that positive mental health and mature adulthood is rare.

So now we can see a more clear picture: Most individuals around the world are feeling restless right now.

How the Jonah Complex Induces Restlessness

Maslow had a term for individuals who weren’t living their potential.

He called it the Jonah Complex. He often warned his students:2Maslow, The Farther Reaches of Human Nature, 1993.

“If you deliberately plan to be less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you’ll be deeply unhappy for the rest of your life.”

I feel Maslow’s warning in my body each time I read it.

Denying your natural potential—refusing your call to adventure—leads to perpetual restlessness.

Restlessness Triggers These Behaviors …

When we fail to understand the true source of restlessness, we invariably seek remedies in the usual places:

  • Consumption (food, drugs, alcohol, sugar, products)
  • Distraction and diversion (television, social media, porn, etc)

In truth, we’ll do almost anything to avoid feeling restless.

These behaviors, again, are symptoms. Unfortunately, these destructive behaviors are habit-forming.

Restlessness, then, can lead us on a downward spiral.

How to Overcome Restlessness: 10 Strategies

Okay, now that we have a clearer understanding of the problem, let’s highlight how to overcome restlessness.

Not surprisingly, all of the following solutions are interrelated.

Strategy #1: Follow Your Bliss

Grab hold of a powerful insight from the late mythologist Joseph Campbell who often instructed his students to “follow their bliss.”

Here’s the original quote from Campbell’s famous interview with Bill Moyer captured in The Power of Myth:

“I even have a superstition that has grown on me as the result of invisible hands coming all of the time—namely, that if you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open doors for you. I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to beWherever you are, if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.

Maslow often had a similar remark for his students:3Maslow, Abraham H. (1943) “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Psychological Review, 50, 370-396.

“A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately happy. What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization.”

The essential message is to find what you enjoy and immerse yourself in it.

Strategy #2: Explore Your Dreams to Connect with the Unconscious

Freud saw dreams as merely a rehashing of events from prior days and memories from childhood.

Jung discovered an extraordinary third source of dream content: the “age-old unforgotten wisdom stored up in us.”

Jung saw our restlessness and other neurotic behaviors as symptoms of being disconnected from one’s dream life—from the wisdom of our inner world.

This wisdom, according to Jung, exists as a living potential within each of us. We access this wisdom through our dreams, which provide a bridge between the ego and our inner world every night when we enter REM sleep.

Neurotic tendencies like restlessness are often a result of what Jung called one-sidedness—holding fixed, rigid, and sometimes extreme perspectives about yourself, the world, and life.

Jung found that our dreams (and imagination) can help us dissolve our one-sidedness. They can help us see and embrace new perspectives and open up new doorways for internal and external exploration.

Modern research supports Jung’s findings. For example, Rosalind Cartwright, a sleep researcher at Chicago’s Rush Medical Center and author of The Twenty-Four Hour Mind, has shown that individuals who recall their dreams heal more quickly from depressive moods associated with divorce.4D. Cartwright, Rosalind. (1996). Dreams and adaptation to divorce. Trauma and dreams.

By keeping a journal by your bedside and recording your dreams upon awakening, you take the first step in reviving your dream life and putting an end to your restlessness.

Strategy #3: Cast Your Vision to Clarify Your Future Self

Your personal vision for your Future Self links to your bliss and dreams.

As a coach and guide to others, I’ve found the most significant challenge with vision is casting one that’s truly your own.

What do I mean?

We’re conditioned through early childhood to follow orders. Our parents and teachers are always telling us what to do, sometimes overtly, but always subconsciously through their behavior and attitudes.

This subconscious conditioning has a way of stripping us of our innate spontaneity.

So when we’re tasked to clarify our vision, we invariably turn our attention to what our parents and society expect of us—and we don’t even know it!

The result? Resistance, which just feeds into our restlessness.

When you elect to do things that go against your interests, your unconscious lets you know it.

Do you want to establish a vision that inspires you? See this guide.

Strategy #4: Clarify Your Values to Align Yourself

Values are another powerful tool we often discuss on this website that can help you overcome restlessness.

When you’re living in discord with your values, you’re going to feel restlessness. For example, if you’re selling yourself out in some way, you’re going to be fidgety.

When you don’t know your values, you won’t be able to identify the source of your restlessness.

So what do you stand for? You can go through this personal values assessment here.

Strategy #5: Improve Your Sleep to Restore Your Energy

Restless sleep is another common problem.

While the internal terrain is vital to address, our external environment often works against us too.

From over-stimulation from watching screens to the blue light and EMF infiltrating our homes and bombarding our biology, it’s becoming more difficult to have a restful night’s sleep.

I cover a host of strategies to address these environmental issues and restore your circadian rhythm in this guide.

Strategy #6: Find Your Center to Calm Yourself

When you’re feeling restless, there’s an archetype in the driver’s seat of your consciousness.

For example, it might be …

  • A Tyrant who is demanding service with some unusual form of entertainment.
  • An Addicted Lover seeking a specific kind of stimulation.
  • A Romantic looking to fall in love and experience passion and drama.
  • A sadist aching to torture someone.
  • A masochist looking to be tortured or humiliated.

The psychic landscape is vast. Even though you may not know what archetypes are giving you the feeling the restlessness, you can always return to your Center.

The Center is an internal space that’s calm, empty, active, and alert. From here, you can observe what’s happening within yourself from a state of neutrality.

From your Center, you can overcome the feeling of restlessness and merely witness it.

Strategy #7: Stand Still to Sink Your Energy

As Marie-Louise von Franz noted above, restlessness is a result of stored-up energy.

From a qigong perspective, we might amend her statement to say that blocked or stagnant energy is not flowing naturally throughout one’s body.

So instead of trying to do something about your restlessness, stand still. Stand, let go, open your body, and witness what’s happening inside of you.

This form of standing is, in my experience, one of the most potent practices an individual can use. The method itself is thousands of years old, and it’s the foundation of qigong and all of the internal martial arts like Tai Chi.

If you’re interested in exploring this topic more deeply, see this guide on a standing practice called Zhan Zhuang.

Strategy #8: Own Your Rage and Envy to Keep it From Building Pressure

What does rage have to do with restlessness?

Well, we live in a System that generates certain projected ideals of image, wealth, beauty, and status.

Those who have more, consciously or unconsciously tease and look down upon, those who have less. And there’s always someone who has more—and others who have less.

Conversely, those who have less, invariably envy those who have more.

So by the end of childhood, we’ve all been subjected to a fair amount of teasing, bullying, and cruel behaviors. Some of it is conscious, but the vast majority of these traumatic experiences are stored up within the body (the unconscious).

This teasing creates a reservoir of repressed rage within each of us. Emotional outbursts and tempers occur when the pressure cooker goes passed containable levels.

What can we do with this rage? Often, we can just acknowledge it and experience it to a degree, but without becoming overwhelmed by it.

Doing so often reduces our rage thereby helping us overcome restlessness.

Strategy #9: Use Trauma Release Exercises to Unblocked Stored Energy

The Jungians aren’t the only ones who acknowledge the stored-up energy (restlessness) within us.

Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk’s bestseller The Body Keeps the Score highlights how trauma is stored within our bodies from childhood. Psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich made the same observation in the 1930s, calling it “body armoring.”

How do you overcome your restlessness once and for all? Address this stored trauma directly.

Thankfully, there is a wide range of effective methods including:

  • Dr. David Berceli’s Trauma Release Exercises  (TRE)
  • Dr. Alexander Lowen’s Bioenergetic Analysis
  • Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

I would suggest starting with TRE because it’s easy to do on your own and there are lots of tutorials on Youtube. Here’s a brief overview from Dr. Berceli:

Breaking up stored trauma in your body may be the fastest way of overcoming restlessness.

Strategy #10: Confront Your Shadow So You Can Stand Your Ground

We also feel restless when we’re running away from our shadow. What does that mean?

The personal shadow is everything about ourselves we don’t fully know, see, or acknowledge.

If you find that you frequently …

  • Judge others,
  • Envy others,
  • Become emotionally reactive,
  • Can’t look at yourself in the mirror, or
  • Observe recurrent patterns in relationships

Then, your restlessness could be a sign of avoiding the hidden aspects of yourself.

The answer? Turn and face your shadow.

See this complete guide to shadow work for more details.

How to Overcome Restlessness: Play with These Strategies

Restlessness is merely a sign or symptom of something out of alignment within you.

We can perceive the source of neurosis as being physical, biochemical, emotional, mental, or spiritual. And we can approach this issue from multiple avenues simultaneously.

When you’re feeling restless, you can:

  1. Connect with your interests and follow your bliss.
  2. Explore your dreams and imagination.
  3. Cast your vision of your future self.
  4. Clarify and reaffirm your values.
  5. Improve and restore your sleep.
  6. Find your center and observe yourself.
  7. Stand still and open your body.
  8. Acknowledge your rage.
  9. Address the trauma stored in your body.
  10. Confront your shadow.

Play around with the above strategies and see what opens up within yourself.

Read Next

Three Stages of Self-Discovery with Activities for Each Stages

How to Select the Best Non-Toxic Mattress Topper

The Hero’s Journey Guide: A Roadmap for Personal Growth

About the Author

Scott Jeffrey is the founder of CEOsage, a self-leadership resource publishing in-depth guides read by millions of self-actualizing individuals. He writes about self-development, practical psychology, Eastern philosophy, and integrative practices. For 25 years, Scott was a business coach to high-performing entrepreneurs, CEOs, and best-selling authors. He's the author of four books including Creativity Revealed.

Learn more >

  • Thanks for this scott. I agree, but perhaps it can be put more fundamentaly. – if you (in your essence) are identified with yourself (your ego) you run into trouble. So the best way to be free is to identify with only that which is true (your essence) . So far i found longer meditations to be the best way to get to know my meness. With love and appreciation keiron miller.

    • Thanks for your comment, Keiron. I understand what you mean. The challenge is that most people find, if they’re honest, that even with in-depth meditation they are still rooted in their ego over 99% of the time — especially during peak, work hours. Now, you can use meditation to tap into the subtle realm, but in and of itself meditation is unlikely (in my experience) to resolve feelings of restlessness.

  • Thank you, Scott, for sharing all of these insights and knowledge with us! I am finding your writings very thought-provoking!

  • An excellent piece. Now of course I also have 13 further browser tabs open to read through. And I love it :D

  • inspiring as each time I read something on your website. explained clearly, simply, kindly and right up to the point. I both enjoy and learn your profound wisdom of human psyche and the reflections that it brings out eventually. Thank you.

  • I found this article very thorough and helpful, however regarding the recording of one’s dreams I unfortunately do not have but one a few times a year as I have a TBI and sleep disorder. You’ve reminded me to meditate more. As for the subconscious, I journal. As for anxiety and depression, I take medication and see a therapist. I’m from a family of psychologists/sociologists thus I am familiar with these fields. However I still get restless.

  • I love it. It is a refreshing, balanced look. I was restless and searching for something to put to work to change that. So I thought, ok I’ll give Attached by Amir something a chance. It made me laugh but it was also working me up and I knew it. Then I thought let’s just see what is available out there on restlessness since it is how I feel these couple of days and your article was a balm after Attached. It opened many doors after that lousy book had me locked in a room without a window or door and magnified my restlessness. Thank you.

  • Oh, and interestingly enough, you talk about a fee things that resonate deeply with my religion: we believe that the path you are meant to be on is the easiest of all (your bliss). We also believe that people are dreaming when awake, and are in the real world when asleep/dead. Something like thr matrix.

    I appreciated that I could relate on that level to what you say.

  • This was so helpful. Restlessness doesn’t happen very often for me so when it does it feels intense. Mine is situational in that restlessness only happens to me when I am going through huge life changes, having experienced an epiphany or after I have cone come through a huge and trying realization about myself or others. It’s the feeling of, “now what?” This is so helpful because I have been doing most if these things naturally as I have been working on self-awareness for many, many years. Pulling off those layers and getting to my core. I feel better when I check in. I will be sure to review this article again the next time I get slapped by a vat of restlessness. Thank you so much!!

  • Great piece of writing Scott. Thank you for your insights into restlessness . You have certainly given me something to think about. I am definitely going to test out your theories and in doing so hope to find my inner peace (which has been here all along).

  • I love standing like a tree- this idea is so freeing, and in line with Psalm 1, being like a tree standing by streams of living water… going to practice this everyday now; so good to find a standing meditation for the restless person who finds sitting or laying not as productive- LOL

  • hey, thank you for your writing.
    I am exploring my inner world for few years already, I did 10 days vipasana few years ago wich thought me a lot, and I am doing meditations and yoga regulary. and still and even maybe becouse of, I was blind to my proublems, lately I came to realize and admit that I have restless and rage proublem which I kind of ignored, its not feets to the image of mine- meditator and yogi.

    your writing was helpful at least to begin with, ill keep my journey and check your directions :)

    Thank you very much
    and good luck with your journey

  • Hey Scott,

    I very much appreciate your guides and the work you obviously put into them.

    I would say though that I’ve noticed with a few of your guides, they also run off into other guides and then become challenging to implement, from getting half way through this one, but then we have to go do that one, which has other links to other guides in the middle, and so it’s like looking up a word that leads you to looking up 10 other words before you finally get the first one understood.

    I also understand that part of it is for SEO purposes, internal links, etc., part of being online

    If you could, it would be more helpful and less frustrating to go through your guides with fewer tangents and having it turn into such a big project that implementation becomes difficult and the intended results not realized.

    Thanks again for all you do. It is very worthwhile and appreciated.

    Cheers

    Brian

    • When most people read a book, they read in sequential order.

      Online, the reading process is more dynamic as you’re able to skip around and jump from “chapter” to “chapter” driven by the reader’s needs and interests.

      Understood correctly, this is actually an advantage (and a convenience).

      The links are there for your convenience. Each guide is as self-contained as the topic can be within 5,000 words.

      You don’t have click on the links and read other guides to finish the one you’re on. That’s a personal choice.

      But if you do decide to read related guides, it will give more context and texture to what you’re reading.

      (So I don’t appreciate your feedback here. Nor do I find it useful or valid. The issue you’re having seems to be one of self-regulation. And that’s on up to you!)

  • Love this article I have to go through all the topics deeply to find my inner voice and happiness. Hate feeling restless it’s hard to change but not impossible. Thank you.

    • One thing to keep in mind is that it’s not feelings like restlessness that make us suffer. It’s our resistance to the feeling itself. If you can acknowledge and allow the restlessness something else might emerge for you.

  • I read reslessness guide and found similarities in my life. They goaded me and suppressed me when I did what they only goaded me . I feel it is sheer meaningless now having tried to do anything. and there is restlessness. H

    • Is the problem a sense of meaninglessness? Or is it your resistance to this feeling of meaninglessness?

      If you see reality clearly, a sense of meaninglessness becomes pervasive. Most of the great postmodern philosophers experienced this viscerally.

      What if it was okay for you to feel meaninglessness and just allowed that experience to be? What might unfold then?

  • Thank you very much for this article. It was very hard for my restless mind not to click on hyperlinks ( I still did on a few but will leave them to read tomorrow). Today I had a peak of restlessness (nothing bad happened, all good as they say) and made myself relax with some slow yoga music and journaling and I just bursted out crying for no reason. this stuff is real, thanks for such an explorative article. now I just need to find a way to focus at least on one or two solutions you mentioned and not get derailed by doing million other things…

    • The main thing, Anna, is to pay attention to what’s working for you. A lot of time we try lots of things — not to get any results but to show ourselves that we’re “trying.” Instead, experiment with different modalities and carefully observe what changes may or may not occur.

  • Hi Scott,

    Thanks for writing such a wonderful piece. I feel restless all the time but have always been trying to find solutions or avoid the feeling. Unable to not resist. How to you think the acceptance gets through you?

    Many Thanks

    • Hi Tanuja,

      It’s difficult to accept that which we don’t understand.

      So it’s important to better understand the source of your restlessness first. And this takes reflection and inner examination.

  • great insight something i have is restlessness but didn’t know what it was and now know how to handle it better

  • Thank you Scott, I totally agree that most of the universe is not living up to their God given life. Along with what you are saying the Bible instructs on how to become the best we can be. But you insight on my restlessness was so very helpful in my understanding on how I should proceed. Thank you again.

  • It is said to connect with your interest and explore your dreams. Dreams have to be in the field of interest. Dreams can be not in a field of interest.

  • >