I was cancelling an app the other day. One of those ones I have absolutely no memory of downloading, yet have somehow been paying for quietly in the background for the last couple of years. No idea what it does. No idea why I thought I needed it. But there it was, another little monthly charge chipping away at my bank balance.

And it made me think.
If rest came as a subscription, I’d be straight on it. No hesitation. Annual plan. Premium package. Whatever the top tier is.

And I don’t think I’d be alone.

If someone launched rest as a subscription tomorrow, i reckon it would sell out faster than Oasis tickets. Absolute carnage. Queues, panic, people refreshing their phones like their life depended on it.

Because the truth is, most of us already pay monthly for absolutely everything else. Gym memberships we keep out of optimism rather than evidence. Meal kits we forget to cancel. Productivity apps that promise to organise our lives and instead just send passive aggressive reminders we ignore. Streaming platforms we refuse to let go of because one very specific programme lives there. Beauty subscriptions full of things we never quite get round to using.

I even once paid for an app that reminded me to drink water. Every time the alert went off, I snoozed it and carried on with my cold coffee. Which probably tells you everything you need to know.

But suggest spending money on something that would give a woman actual rest and suddenly she’s doing a full cost benefit analysis.
“I’m not sure I can justify it.”
“Maybe later in the year.”
“I’ll just rest at home.”

Which is quite funny, because we all know how resting at home actually goes.

Women in their 30s, 40s and 50s are brilliant at spending money to cope. Coffee, takeaways, little treats, scrolling, pushing through, getting to Friday. We’re very good at that. What we’re not so good at is spending money to recover.

Because recovery requires space. And space is the one thing most women don’t ever gift themselves.

At home, rest turns into something else entirely. You sit down with the intention of relaxing and five minutes later you’re answering emails, sorting something out, doing a “quick job” that somehow takes an hour, or reorganising something you didn’t even know bothered you. Your brain never really switches off because it’s still in the same environment that keeps asking things of you.

That’s why retreats work. Not in a dramatic, life-changing, “new you by Monday” way. But because they physically remove you from your life long enough for your brain to stop scanning for the next thing.

There’s no dishwasher that’s yours.
No washing waiting.
No diary reminders popping up.
No one needing anything from you.

You don’t have to be on. You don’t have to manage. You don’t have to hold everything together.

And here’s the bit women don’t realise until they’re there.
You’ve been running on empty for so long that “normal tired” feels completely normal. It’s only when you stop that you notice how exhausted you actually were.

If rest really were a subscription service, we’d all have signed up years ago and sent the referral link to every woman we know. But because it isn’t packaged that way, it requires a decision. And women are very good at putting off decisions that involve prioritising themselves.

So maybe the question isn’t “can I justify a retreat?”
Maybe it’s “why am I trying to get through another year on iced lattes and coping mechanisms when what I actually need is a few days of proper space?”

A retreat isn’t indulgent. It’s not a reward. It’s not pampering. It’s a pause.

Strip it right back and it’s the one thing that gives something back instead of taking more. Energy. Headspace. Patience. A bit of yourself that you forgot you’d lost.

And the best part is, you don’t need motivation or discipline or a new routine. You just need to turn up.

Rest might not come as a subscription.
But if it did, you’d already be paying for it.

And honestly, three days in Ibiza still costs less that most of your subscriptions that you don’t even know you have or can’t remember how to cancel.

Call it self-care. Call it maintenance. Call it survival. Whatever helps.

You deserve it either way.