Why we're getting worse at resting—and what actually helps.
Where was a time when rest felt uncomplicated.
At the end of the day, you came home, changed into something comfortable, ate dinner, and slowly let the evening unfold. There was no pressure to optimize your sleep, no endless advice about bedtime routines, and certainly no feeling that rest was something to be earned. It was simply part of life—a quiet transition between one day and the next.
Somewhere along the way, that changed.
Today, many of us spend our evenings trying to recover from the very pace we've come to accept as normal. We answer one last email from the couch. We scroll through social media long after we intended to put our phones down. Streaming platforms ask if we'd like to watch one more episode, while our inbox quietly reminds us of tomorrow's responsibilities. Even after the lights are off, our minds often remain switched on.
The body is in bed.
The mind is still at work.
It's no surprise that rest has become one of the most talked-about topics in modern wellness. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than one in three American adults regularly fail to get the recommended amount of sleep. Yet sleeping longer isn't always the same as feeling rested. Many people wake up after eight hours only to feel as though they never truly slowed down in the first place.
Perhaps the problem isn't simply that we're sleeping less.
Perhaps we've forgotten how to prepare ourselves to rest.
Sleep researchers often describe the hour before bed as a transition rather than a destination. Our bodies don't switch from "busy" to "resting" the moment our heads touch the pillow. They respond to signals—small, familiar cues that tell the nervous system it's finally safe to let go. A warm shower. Dimmer lights. A favorite chair. Fresh sheets. A cup of herbal tea. The comforting weight of a blanket you've owned for years.
These rituals may seem ordinary, but together they create something surprisingly powerful: permission to slow down.
For generations, changing into sleepwear was one of those rituals. Not because pajamas were fashionable, but because they marked the end of the day. The simple act of taking off the clothes you worked in and putting on something softer created a subtle psychological shift. Without realizing it, you were telling your body that there was nowhere left to be and nothing left to accomplish.
That distinction matters more today than ever before.
The boundaries between work and personal life have become increasingly blurred. Dining tables double as desks. Living rooms become offices. Notifications follow us from morning until bedtime, making it difficult to recognize when the day has actually ended. In many homes, there is no commute to signal the transition home—because home has been the workplace all along.
Maybe that's why so many people find themselves staying in the same clothes from breakfast until bedtime. It feels practical, even efficient. But over time, something small is lost. When every hour looks the same, it's harder for the body to recognize when it's time to shift into a slower rhythm.
Rest, it turns out, is rarely just about sleep.
It's about creating moments of transition.
And those moments often begin much earlier than we think.
Rest Isn't Something You Earn
Why we're getting worse at resting—and what actually helps.
In recent years, scientists have become increasingly interested in something we rarely stop to think about: touch.
Long before we understand language, we understand comfort through physical sensation. The warmth of being held, the softness of a blanket, the familiar texture of something safe—our nervous systems learn to associate certain sensations with security. Those associations don't disappear as we grow older. They simply become quieter.
That may explain why, after an overwhelming day, so many of us instinctively reach for the same oversized sweater, the same well-worn blanket, or the same pair of pajamas we've owned for years. We aren't choosing them because they're fashionable. We're choosing them because they ask nothing of us.
Comfort, in many ways, is less about what we notice than what we stop noticing.
A waistband that doesn't need adjusting.
Fabric that doesn't cling to dry winter skin.
Seams that don't leave marks after an evening curled up on the sofa.
Clothing that simply allows your body to exist without interruption.
These details sound small when listed individually. Together, they create something much larger: ease.
Perhaps that's why the conversation around sleep has quietly expanded over the past few years. People aren't only searching for ways to sleep longer. They're looking for ways to feel calmer before sleep even begins.
Search trends reflect that shift. Interest in phrases like bedtime routine, sleep hygiene, and better sleep habits has steadily grown, while wellness experts increasingly emphasize that quality rest starts well before getting into bed. The hour before sleep has become almost as important as sleep itself—not because of another complicated routine, but because our bodies need time to recognize that the day is over.
For many people, that transition begins with changing what they're wearing.
Not because pajamas have suddenly become more fashionable, but because the role of sleepwear has quietly changed.
It used to belong almost exclusively to bedtime.
Today, it often belongs to the hours before it.
An evening spent reading on the couch.
Making tomorrow's lunch.
Watching a movie with the family.
Stepping onto the porch to let the dog out one last time.
Answering the door for a late delivery.
Working through one final page of a novel before turning off the light.
These moments don't require us to be dressed for the outside world. But they also don't feel like moments we'd like to spend in stiff jeans, restrictive waistbands, or clothing that constantly asks to be adjusted.
The clothing we wear at home has gradually become part of how we decompress.
Not because it's visible to anyone else.
Because it's visible to ourselves.
There's something quietly symbolic about changing into clothes that belong only to home. They create a boundary that modern life has slowly erased. Without saying a word, they remind us that productivity has ended and presence can begin.
That realization became especially meaningful over the past few years. According to Gallup, nearly half of U.S. employees with remote-capable jobs now spend at least part of their week working from home. For freelancers, creatives, entrepreneurs, and many hybrid workers, the transition between professional and personal life no longer happens during a commute. It happens inside the same four walls.
When the places overlap, the rituals become even more important.
At Lilysmile, we found ourselves returning to a surprisingly simple question.
If home has changed, shouldn't the clothes we wear there change too?
Not to become trendier.
Not to become more luxurious.
But to better reflect the way people actually live today.
That thought eventually became the starting point for the Deeper Sleep Collection.
Not because we believed another pajama set would help people sleep longer.
But because we believed comfort begins long before bedtime.
It begins in those ordinary, almost forgettable moments between finishing the day and falling asleep—the moments when your shoulders finally relax, your breathing slows, and your mind begins to understand that there is nowhere else it needs to be.
Perhaps that's what better rest has always been.
Not something we achieve.
Something we gently allow ourselves to return to.