I just walked across the Himalayas — here's what it taught me about rest and being exhausted

I've just returned from three weeks in Nepal — trekking the Three Passes route through the Khumbu region, crossing Kongma La, Cho La and Renjo La, sleeping at altitudes above 5,000 metres, walking for eight or nine hours some days through some of the most dramatic landscapes on earth.

It was extraordinary. And made me exhausted. And — perhaps surprisingly — one of the most clarifying things I've done in years.

Here's what I didn't expect: that walking that far, that hard, in that much silence, would teach me something new about rest.

The Himalayas don't care how busy you are

There's something that happens when you remove yourself entirely from your ordinary life. No phone signal for days at a time. No emails. No to-do list that can reach you. Just the path, the mountain, your breath, and the person walking beside you.

At first, the mind keeps going. It rehearses conversations, makes plans, writes invisible lists. The nervous system, so accustomed to constant input, searches for something to process.

But slowly — after a few days at altitude, where even breathing requires your full attention — something starts to settle. Not because you've forced it. Because there's simply nothing left to grip.

The Himalayas have a way of making your ordinary preoccupations feel very small. Not in a dismissive way — in a spacious way. Like standing back far enough from a painting that you can finally see the whole thing.

What altitude teaches you about the body

At 5,000 metres, your body has one job: survive. Get enough oxygen. Keep moving. Rest when you need to.

There's a brutal simplicity to it. You can't push through the way you might at sea level. The mountain will humble you quickly if you try. You have to listen — really listen — to what your body is telling you, because ignoring it has consequences.

For those of us who spend most of our lives overriding our body's signals — pushing through tiredness, staying up too late, filling every gap with stimulation — this is confronting. And revelatory.

The body knows things. It's been trying to tell us. We've just been too busy to hear.

The exhaustion that rest doesn't fix

Before I left for Nepal, I sent an email to the people on my list asking a simple question: what's your biggest challenge when it comes to stress and your nervous system?

The replies came flooding in. And what struck me, reading them from a guesthouse in Namche Bazaar, was how many people described the same thing: an exhaustion that sleep doesn't touch. A tiredness that follows them around even when they're doing everything right — meditating, exercising, eating well, getting their eight hours.

One person wrote about the mental load of managing work, family and an autoimmune condition simultaneously, and how her head never stops spinning. Another described waking at 4am with her mind already racing. Another talked about the inability to simply stop — the phone filling every gap, the body braced even in moments of supposed rest.

This isn't a willpower problem. It isn't a habits problem. It's a nervous system problem.

When the body has been running in a state of chronic stress for long enough, it forgets how to come down. Even when the circumstances change — even when you get into bed, or go on holiday, or sit down to meditate — the system stays braced. Alert. Ready. Because that's what it learned to do.

What I witnessed in the Himalayas was the opposite: a nervous system slowly, reluctantly, beautifully letting go. Not because I made it. Because the conditions finally allowed it.

Coming home

I'm back now, walking along the canal in Stroud, adjusting to a life that has wifi and a full inbox again.

But I've brought something back with me. A renewed sense of what genuine rest actually feels like — and a deeper conviction that what most of us need isn't more practices or more discipline. It's a different relationship with our own nervous system. One built on safety, not effort.

That's what I'm building towards this year. More on that very soon.

And if you want to come somewhere beautiful this summer...

We're returning to Rydal Hall in the Lake District this August — one of our favourite retreats we've ever run, in one of the most quietly magnificent buildings in England.

Three days of yoga, meditation, Yoga Nidra, a Sleep Better workshop, guided walks to Rydal Caves and Grasmere, and the kind of nourishing food that makes you remember why eating together matters.

August 28–30, 2026. Rooms from £445 per person.

It won't be Nepal. But in its own way, it might just do the same thing.

Find out more and book your place →

Siôn Jones is a meditation teacher, yoga instructor and retreat organiser based in Stroud. He runs Heartful Retreats with Rosanna Gordon, and teaches mindfulness, Yoga Nidra and yoga across the UK.