What is rest anyway?

In a recent article I spoke about unhealthy striving. I pointed out that we live in a society of high-achieving, high-producing, chronically tired and burnt-out individuals. I shared how often we wear a lack of sleep as a badge of honour. People often pride themselves on how little sleep they are getting and how much they are getting done, without realising that “functioning” on only a few hours of sleep per night, is equivalent to driving under the influence of alcohol.

Sleep deprivation not only leads to feeling physically tired or drained, but it also has a negative impact on our relationships, our families, and our work. When we are tired, we are less patient, less attentive, less joyful, and more likely to be irritated, annoyed, or to get frustrated or angry over small things. We are also distracted, and we struggle to give our attention to the things we care about most.

However, have you ever tried to fix a persistent lack of energy by sleeping more only to sleep and still wake up feeling exhausted? The reason for this is that sleep and rest are NOT the same thing. We tend to incorrectly assume that to rest means to sleep. Yet sleep is but ONE form or rest.

So, in the spirit of truly slowing down to take stock, I want to talk about rest. And ironically, it feels as if this article is very needed right now. Over the last few weeks, I have spoken with so many people who have shared with me how exhausted they are feeling. And this week, I insisted that a client of mine makes time for self-care and rest, because I noticed how hard she was striving, and how little grace she was allowing herself.

So, what is rest? The dictionary defines rest as ceasing work or movement in order to relax, refresh oneself, or recover strength, or ceasing to engage in strenuous or stressful activity. So, rest is not just about sleeping. Rest can involve other activities that allow you to relax, refresh yourself, or recover strength, and most importantly regain your energy.

Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz wrote a book, The Power of Full Engagement. The subtitle of the book says it all: Managing energy, not time, is the key to high performance and personal renewal. You see, time is a finite resource. We all get the same number of hours per week – 168 to be exact. There’s a limit to how many hours you can work.

However, energy is different. Loehr and Schwartz explain that your energy can be expanded and renewed by establishing specific rituals — behaviours that are intentionally practiced and precisely scheduled, with the goal of making them unconscious and automatic as quickly as possible. These rituals support your rest and recovery so you can maintain the energy to do the things that matter most or do the work that bring you the biggest results.

According to Saundra Dalton-Smith, we are suffering from a rest deficit, because we don’t really understand what rest looks like and the true power of rest. She reasons that rest should “equal restoration in seven key areas of your life” – physical, mental, sensory, creative, emotional, social, and spiritual. I will discuss each of these types of rest in more detail.

The first type of rest we need is physical rest. Physical rest does include sleeping or napping. And physical rest could also be active. Things like yoga, stretching, or receiving a massage help improve the body’s circulation and flexibility and thus help us feel rested physically. There are different types of yoga of course, and I have often found a yoga practice that ends in meditation to be particularly supportive to me feeling physically rested. If you struggle with sleep, then finding ways to incorporate active physical rest into your routine, could even support more restful sleep.

The second type of rest is mental rest. We live in a world where we are always “on”. Our minds are constantly racing. If you wake up after seven or eight hours of sleep, still feeling tired, or you need coffee to start your day or to get you through the day, you might have a mental rest deficit. When we are mentally tired, we feel irritable and forgetful, we have a hard time concentrating, and we have a hard time switching off at night when we try to fall asleep. Our minds can wreak havoc with our inner peace.

A lot of people swear by the mental benefits of meditation – especially as a grounding practice at the start of your day. However, if you struggle with meditation, or it feels like too much right now, then you could start with small grounding practices that only take a few minutes. Simply catching yourself in the moment when your mind is racing and choosing to bring yourself back to the present moment, can make a huge difference.

In Shirzad Chamine’s program called Positive Intelligence, he teaches you how to use your senses to bring yourself back to the present moment, by simply paying attention to what you are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling in THIS moment. Getting up and walking to the washroom while taking a few deep breaths, could slow your racing mind down. And sometimes simply feeling your feet on the ground, wiggling your toes, and taking a deep breath, is enough to bring you back to the present moment. As much as possible, you want to reorientate yourself IN your environment, when you notice that your mind is elsewhere, by bringing your attention back to your surroundings and slowing down for a moment to take a few deep breaths.

It’s also helpful to consider that your thoughts simply come and go and that you don’t need to attach to any particular thought. Jeff Foster explains how to deal with negative thoughts. He says that it’s helpful to treat our thoughts as birds. They are simply flying by tweeting. And we don’t have to catch the bird. We can just let it go.

I find that creating awareness about our thoughts and which thoughts most often pop into our heads can be helpful. So, I often invite my clients to simply notice their thoughts for two weeks. They are encouraged to simply pay attention to what types of thoughts they are having, and to just notice the state of being they are in when the thoughts appear. Most of the time, they start to notice a pattern of one particular kind of thinking, and a state of being that stems from engaging in the particular thought pattern. Consciously choosing to simply let the thoughts go – i.e., treating the thoughts as passing birds – and not to engage with the thinking pattern, can make a huge difference to the level of mental rest someone can experience.

The third type of rest we need is sensory rest. Bright lights, computer screens, background noise and multiple conversations — whether they’re in an office or on Zoom calls — can cause our senses to feel overwhelmed. This can be countered by doing something as simple as closing your eyes for a minute in the middle of the day, as well as by intentionally unplugging from electronics at the end of every day. Intentional moments of sensory deprivation can begin to undo the damage inflicted by living in an over-stimulating world. This is the reason why digital detoxes and social media hiatuses are so popular. They are a way to reduce sensory and mental overload.

A few years ago, I completed Ari Whitten’s Energy Blueprint program. And the first few weeks of the program was all about optimising sleep. Part of optimising one’s sleep, is to block out any blue light late at night to reduce the sensory impact and allow for sensory rest before bedtime. My experience is that I sleep better when I reduce my exposure to blue light at least two hours before bedtime.

For empaths and people who are naturally more sensitive – especially those of us who are more anxious by nature – sensory rest is critical to our overall wellbeing, because our nervous systems can get overstimulated more often than the average person’s. I find that I get easily overstimulated by strong smells, loud noises, too many bright lights, and simply too much going on at any one time in my immediate environment. So, part of the reason why I do a solo daily early morning walk, IS to provide my nervous system with sensory rest, and in the evenings I make a point of reducing noise and light before bedtime.

The fourth type of rest is creative rest. Creative rest reawakens the awe and wonder inside each of us. What fills your cup of inspiration? Is it nature? Is it art? What creates the experience of awe and wonder inside of you? For me it’s catching the sunrise on an early morning walk. And watching my children at play. It’s witnessing someone gain a different perspective or finding the inspiration to turn things around.

One of the first things I noticed that told me that I was approaching burnout, was that I was no longer finding inspiration. I noticed that I had cut out most of the things that give me the opportunity for creative rest. One of my favourite forms of creative rest, is to read or listen to books that inspire me and to write about what I’m learning. Writing helps me process and is foundational to my creative inspiration. So, when there is no time to read, or no time to write, I feel less inspired.

Whenever I notice that I’m feeling extra tired or I have very little inspiration, I will often also switch to reading fiction or to reading something lighter. This not only provides mental rest, but also creative rest. Sometimes reading just for fun, is the best way to find inspiration again. This month I read fellow South African, Trevor Noah’s book, Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood. I laughed. I sobbed. I was deeply inspired. AND, I felt rejuvenated.

Creative rest can also be achieved through an appreciation of nature, and through enjoying the arts. Turning your workspace into a place of inspiration by displaying images of places you love and works of art that speak to you, could support you not only in sensory rest, but also in creative rest.

Some of us are people pleasers. We over serve, over care, over do. We are a reliable and dependable shoulder to cry on. And sometimes we find ourselves getting resentful, because we are pouring from an empty cup. When you reach a point where you start to feel unappreciated and like others are taking advantage of you, it’s a clear signal that it’s time for emotional rest.

Emotional rest allows the person who always holds space for others, to also freely express their feelings and put some boundaries in place to focus on self-care. Emotional rest also requires the courage to be authentic. An emotionally rested person can answer the question “How are you today?” with a truthful “I’m not okay” — and then go on to share some hard things that otherwise go unsaid.

In my work as a coach, I often hold space for people as they process difficult emotions and traumatic experiences, or as they talk through their mental and emotional struggles, and it requires that I have capacity to hold space for them, to meet them at the edge of their most frightening challenges, and that I’m right there, and they know I’ve got them. For me to do that, I need emotional rest for myself. This is one of the reasons I have my own coach. I would not be able to hold space for my clients in this way if I didn’t have someone to hold space for me. Working with my coach is one of the most important ways that I provide myself with emotional rest. It’s a soft place for me to land and take care of myself, so I can show up and take care of my clients.

If you’re in need of emotional rest, you probably have a social rest deficit too. This occurs when we fail to differentiate between those relationships that revive us, from those relationships that exhaust us. We all have relationships in our lives that take more from us than they actually give back in value. And we have relationships that feed our souls and make us feel loved and supported. To experience more social rest, ensure that you also spend time with positive and supportive people, and that you are not spending all your time around people who drain your energy.

This week, I supported another client of mine in taking time away from family members who were draining her energy. We role played how she would take a stand for herself and make a request of a particularly difficult family member in her life, so she could give herself the emotional and social rest she needs. You don’t have to tolerate or endure relationships that drain you. You can find ways to put some boundaries in place, express your needs more clearly, or simply create some space for yourself. That is OK. In fact, it’s critical to your emotional and social wellbeing. And you simply cannot pour from an empty cup. So, do what you need to do to fill your cup first, before re-engaging with those people in your life that drain your energy.

All successful people have a support team. They have people who support them in who and what they want to become, who inspire them, who teach and mentor them, or who simply cheer them on. None of us reach success on our own.  And selecting your support team, is a conscious choice. And our support team doesn’t have to be large. You just need people in your life who truly see, value, and appreciate you for who you are and who support your most important goals and aspirations, or who would tell you the truth when you are getting off track.

The final type of rest is spiritual rest, which is the ability to connect beyond the physical and mental and feel a deep sense of belonging, love, acceptance, and purpose. To receive this, engage in something greater than yourself, and add prayer, meditation, or community involvement to your daily routine.

For me, spiritual rest includes slowing down. Really truly slowing down in my thinking and in my doing. It involves long walks out in nature, time spent reflecting, and time spent doing the emotional work required to release any upset I might be feeling. Avoiding our difficult feelings, and supressing our feelings are ways that we attempt to spiritual bypass. It doesn’t serve. True spirituality, IS to work through the upset and feelings that are showing up.

So, how have I taken care of myself over these last few weeks? I have slept more. I actually stopped working with my personal trainer, because I needed time to rest and recover. I read for fun. I continue to take long walks out in nature by myself, because it feeds my soul. I have spent time with loved ones. I have slowed down in my work. I’m currently completing a program in nervous system regulation and trauma and learning some somatic practices to calm my nervous system and be with my anxiety and anger in a more accepting and loving way. I have continued to receive powerful coaching from two of my coaches. I have reached out for support from my most supportive and loving community – a group of coaches that I have grown to love and respect greatly.

I chose NOT to travel for work this month, because it is simply too taxing right now, and I made alternative arrangements to still be present without having to leave home. And I’ve booked time away with my family. I will be spending some time away in a beautiful setting, going on hikes in nature, soaking up the sun, spending time with the people I love the most in the world, and allowing myself to slow down and soak up some creative rest. And I look forward to what I will create during this time.

So, dear reader, what does rest look like for YOU? What type of rest are you most in need of right now? And how will you choose to rest? As Pico Iyer shares, “It’s precisely those who are busiest who most need to give themselves a break”. It’s when we most resist rest, that we need it most. The way I see it, rest is part of the work I do. It’s integral to my creativity, my inspiration, my ability to serve. It helps me keep my cup full.