Work-life balance is now the top priority for job seekers in Singapore across Gen Z, millennials and Gen X, according to the latest Randstad Workmonitor Survey 2025. It’s a timely and telling signal: People of all ages are exhausted, and they want their lives back.
But we’re still asking the wrong question and reinforcing an unhelpful outmoded frame. What if the deeper issue isn’t balance, but rest? Not rest as luxury or laziness. But rest as a fundamental rhythm that allows both life and work to thrive and that enables us to feel like whole human beings, not just productive ones.
It’s time to reframe the conversation – not “work-life balance”, but work-rest rhythm. Because we’re not being undone by work alone; we’re being undone by a culture that doesn’t know how to rest.
The false binary: Work v life
The term “work-life balance” assumes that work and life are separate, even opposing, forces. This framing will always make “work” the villain – the thing we must control or minimise to have a “life”.
The implication? That life begins when work ends, and that every hour spent working is an hour stolen from living. The result is a perpetual zero-sum game, laden with a constant sense of guilt or failure.
There’s also a twist – many of us are burning out, not just from work that we get paid for, but working at life, too. Social obligations, caregiving responsibilities, parenting, side hustles, community involvement, even the quiet striving of self-improvement – these can deplete us as much as any job.
If “life” outside “work” is another to-do list, then the idea of balancing work against life becomes not only unrealistic, but harmful. The more truthful question isn’t, “how do I balance work and life?”, but “how do I build a life rhythm that includes work and restoration?”
A culture of exhaustion
Singapore consistently ranks among the most sleep-deprived countries in the world. One study found that more than half of us have less than seven hours of sleep daily. Even our children and teenagers suffer – 65 per cent of school-age children in Singapore do not meet the recommended nine to 11 hours of sleep on school days. Many of us wake up tired and go to bed wired, caught in a cycle that treats rest as luxury and exhaustion as effort, sometimes even excellence.
The chronic sleep deprivation isn’t just a personal health issue – it’s a public one. Sleep loss has been linked to poor concentration, weaker memory, impaired judgment and increased risk of anxiety and depression. In children and youth, insufficient sleep is correlated with higher mental health vulnerabilities and academic stress.
In organisations, sleep-deprived leaders lose the spaciousness of mind that allows us to make wise, compassionate decisions. One study by the Centre for Creative Leadership found that sleep-deprived leaders make 45 per cent more errors in strategic decisions, show a 30 per cent decrease in their capacity to recognise emotions in team members, are rated 20 per cent less charismatic by subordinates, and have 35 per cent lower stress resilience.
A leader told me, only half-jokingly, that “I will sleep when I’m dead”, inspired by some motivational speaker who espoused optimising every moment with precision.
I once coached a CEO who hadn’t had a full weekend off in over two years. She believed she had to always “show up” to inspire her team. But her team was mirroring her pace, and burning out. When she began logging off visibly, sharing her own struggles and respecting boundaries, the culture softened, and trust deepened. They didn’t do less work, but they worked with more energy, honesty and care.
As a society, we associate rest with weakness, or worse, laziness. Yet burnout isn’t a personal failure. It’s often the outcome of systems that glorify doing and undervalue being. Too often, rest is framed as the opposite of productivity, when in fact, it is the foundation of it.
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Rest is more than sleep
To change our work culture, we need to change how we define rest.
Rest is not only sleep, though sleep is foundational. Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith, a physician and researcher, identifies seven kinds of rest we need as human beings.
There is physical rest, and mental rest – pausing between tasks instead of racing through the day. Emotional rest comes from spaces where we can be fully ourselves without having to perform. Sensory rest is found in silence or in stepping away from our screens. Social rest doesn’t mean isolation, but time away from interactions that drain us. Creative rest is found in beauty, nature, or play. Spiritual rest connects us to something larger than ourselves – meaning, values or presence.
Most of us aren’t missing just one form, we’re lacking several. We may sleep eight hours but still wake up depleted because the deeper kinds of rest – emotional, mental, spiritual – are missing.
Workplaces, by and large, are not set up to offer or support these deeper forms of rest. Even when “well-being” is discussed, it’s often as a perk, a benefit, or a wellness app – not a redesign of how we work or rest together, and what we prioritise for sustained performance.
How language shapes our perspective
As a leadership coach and mental health advocate, I’ve come to see how profoundly language shapes how we see ourselves and the possibilities available to us.
What we name becomes what we notice; what we say becomes what we allow. And what we repeat becomes who we become.
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I choose not to use the word “busy” to describe my days. Naming it gives the illusion of self-importance, yet rarely the nourishment of meaning. Instead, I say my days are “love-packed”. Because for me, work is love (and life) made visible, as poet Kahlil Gibran so poignantly put it.
When we keep framing work as the opposite of life, we reinforce a cycle of scarcity, guilt and anxiety. We speak ourselves into being constantly overwhelmed.
In my own journey – from corporate life to Parliament to social impact to personal growth and my relationships – the work I do in each is deeply connected to who I am. It’s not something I clock in and out of, but an extension of my values and joy.
“Work-rest rhythm” is a more truthful and helpful framing. It acknowledges that we are not machines to optimise, but human beings who must restore to thrive.
I recently returned from a 10-day silent retreat at a monastery in Nepal. With no agenda except to sit, walk, eat and sleep, my mind resisted it. But soon the stillness felt like a soothing balm. Rest is not a break from my purpose, but a way to return to it more deeply.
Living in rhythm, not resistance
This isn’t about mandating naps at work or idealising slow living. It’s about reframing and taking action at every level, not just in workplaces, but across our lives and communities.
As individuals, we can start by paying attention to what kind of rest we’re missing and not waiting for burnout to give ourselves permission to pause. We can change our language, to stop glorifying “busyness” and start honouring a daily rhythm of restoration. We don’t need to say we “have to” pick up our kids, or go to the gym, or meditate – we choose to.
Organisations can design buffer zones or downtime into the workday, protect meeting-free hours and honour digital boundaries.
Findings from a recent study by WorkWell Leaders – a registered charity I founded – showed that the well-being of leaders is the most influential driver of organisational well-being and the third-most influential driver of organisational performance. Leader well-being is 56 times more effective in shaping organisational well-being than stress management and resilience programmes, and 50 times more effective than well-being apps.
As a society, we can and must shift our national narrative of productivity to deliberately include rest as a strength, not a slowdown. Our public messaging, our health promotion frameworks, even our economic ambitions must be rooted in sustainable aliveness, not endless output and KPIs. We must create systems where rest is not squeezed in, but built in.
Rest isn’t a reward for work; it’s part of work – and work is very much part of life.
Anthea Ong is a former Nominated MP, social entrepreneur, mental health advocate, author and leadership coach.
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