There is an emacs mode rst.el which automates many important ReST tasks like building and updateing table-of-contents, and promoting or demoting section headings. Here is the basic .emacs configuration:
(require 'rst)
(setq auto-mode-alist
(append '(("\\.txt$" . rst-mode)
("\\.rst$" . rst-mode)
("\\.rest$" . rst-mode)) auto-mode-alist))
Some helpful functions:
C-c TAB - rst-toc-insert
Insert table of contents at point
C-c C-u - rst-toc-update
Update the table of contents at point
C-c C-l rst-shift-region-left
Shift region to the left
C-c C-r rst-shift-region-right
Shift region to the right