The Weekly German Tradition That Transformed the Way I Look at Rest

Moving to a new country is known to come with a culture shock or two. One thing I’ve discovered since moving to Germany is that there’s definitely a fondness for rules here. One of my favorite rules I’ve learned recently is that adults generally will try to avoid crossing at a red light if there are children about — even if there’s no traffic. Why? To serve as good role models to the future generation. Definitely one of the sweetest examples. 

If you’re in Germany long enough you’ll discover another common rule that has serious reverence for Sunday, legally speaking. It’s called “Sonntag Ist Ruhetag,” or Sunday is rest day. 

If you factor in the German national love for regulations and bureaucracy, it’s easy to see how peaceful downtime has become a matter of law. At first, it felt like a little quirk to get used to, but the more I experienced it the more it revealed about my inner mindset.

So what exactly is Sonntag Ist Ruhetag? The day of rest is rooted in religious origins, as you can imagine, but comes into practice most now with restrictions on shopping or sometimes even moving house. It’s even part of Germany’s constitution, the Grundgesetz. While in bigger cities you’ll probably find cafes and restaurants open, supermarkets definitely won’t be (although, if you’re desperate and near a central train station, you’ll usually have some luck). Playing loud music? You probably shouldn’t. Vacuuming? Forget about it. Laundry? Up for debate. Ask your neighbors.

Yes, there are legally binding rules for how much noise you can and can’t make in your own home during these “quiet” hours. Simply put, these laws are meant to enshrine everybody’s right to rest, but in practice it becomes a little tricky. Exact hours vary, rules in different locations (especially cities) are becoming more lenient following reforms, and enforcement of these rules usually depends on how tolerant your neighbors are. 

Berlin now has eight days per year of permitted Sunday shopping, for example, and you’ll find that a lot of baristas, bakers, museum workers, and sometimes even florists are working on a Sunday. These rules don’t magically transform Germany into a perfect utopia where capitalism and inequality don’t apply, of course. 

In fact, many find it annoying or inconvenient. If you work a typical Monday to Friday, you have to remember to get groceries on Saturday and, more importantly, you have to remember the morning of, so that the store isn’t mobbed with other people remembering to get groceries on Saturday. A lot of people, understandably so, want to save DIY projects for a rainy weekend —  and although you’ll find the rain without a doubt, you may only have one day now that you feel comfortable making so much noise. Since moving, I’ve heard several anecdotes of neighbor intervention — even knocking on doors for crying too loud (after a divorce) post-10 p.m. It can feel a bit surreal sometimes. 

Before moving to Germany, I was used to Sundays being the day I would catch up on everything that hadn’t happened in the past week: laundry, groceries, cleaning, chores I’d procrastinated, and other to-dos. As someone who is AuDHD, which is an unofficial way to describe a person diagnosed with both autism and ADHD, being stuck in that constant loop of only having one day to catch up from the week hit me particularly hard. 

“Sonntag Is Ruhetag” didn’t help. At first, it felt like there was so much less time to do everything I needed, and I ended up moving every chore to Saturday. Sunday then felt like a great big blank space that needed to be filled with something productive. I struggled to fully relax, and would add more plans to my plate because I had the extra time. It all felt rather counterintuitive to resist a day that honored rest, but — even if I wasn’t consciously thinking about it — I wrestled with the feeling that rest not only had to be earned, but also that rest had to be “doing nothing.”

Don’t get me wrong — I still struggle with these feelings. As a freelance writer, sometimes work has to get done at ad hoc hours. If an idea to fix a plot point in a story or pitch an idea for an article comes on a Sunday, sometimes it can be best to pounce on an idea while I have it. I’ve found that it’s hard to follow through on boundaries when you love what you do. 

Many (like me) who also have symptoms of a hyperactive mind will be able to tell you that just because you plan to rest, doesn’t always make it so. But eventually as I settled into the routine I found that having this somewhat built-in rest time and, crucially, societally mandated structure for it, has helped me start to view rest differently. It’s made it so that rest is something necessary to add into my routine before I completely hit a wall and crash, and it’s made me realize rest looks different for everyone.

On Sundays now, my partner and I try to go on a walk and then work on some creative projects. As a neurodivergent individual, I’ll never be a person who finds meditation restful, so this more “active” rest works better for me. Plans with friends are usually more low-key, or pushed to later in the week. 

Sometimes chores have to happen, but they’re limited by the law. Hanging out laundry to dry is not loud enough to stop me from doing it on a Sunday. But even if I have to hang my wet linens, it feels like everyone is taking things a bit slower. That societal shift allows me to follow suit a bit more guilt-free — almost like a nervous system reset for the following week. 

The restrictions of the day can still feel frustrating, of course. Sometimes the chores won’t get done when they should have because of the risk of annoying neighbors, or I forget a necessary ingredient for a Sunday dinner. As much as my body would probably like to, I can’t spend all day asleep or even horizontal on the couch. And it’s not a magic cure. I still struggle with burnout and all the complicated feelings with it, but being pushed to reframe the structure of the week in my head has had a positive effect on how I think about my endless list of to-dos.

Having some external pressure to focus on spending time “quietly” definitely might not work for some, or even for me all the time, but Sundays now have the opportunity to feel like less of a last-minute rush to finish everything up before time runs out on the week, and more the day to focus on hobbies, play D&D with my friends, or visit a flea market.

For me, it’s perhaps less of a rest day and more of a slow one; less about Sunday as a particular day, and more about trying to be a bit kinder to yourself and others. I’ve noticed a lot more people hanging out in the local park on Sundays, playing guitar or throwing a frisbee, weather permitting, of course, and it feels special to even take the time to notice them, because everything moves just that little slower on a Sunday. 

It’s not a perfect system, and definitely not a magical cure against burnout. It’s not always very logical for everyone — even in a country famed for its logistical output (despite Deutsche Bahn). But discovering this rule did help me think about the way I’m approaching routines and thinking about rest. And there’s definitely something that feels intrinsically human about having a day in the week where we all try to collectively take in a breath and take a look around.