Resting

“I’ll spend long days in my hammock just resting and doing absolutely nothing!”

It was the answer I got when I asked a colleague how she was going to spend her vacation. In a few heart beats I went through emotions and thoughts ranging from envy to judgement to hope and ending up in gratitude. In just that short sentence she’d freed me up to consider resting as a completely reasonable and valid choice.

Be mindful of the definition of the “what” you choose to do

Resting has always had a negative connotation to me. That is because resting has been anchored to sitting still, watching TV, maybe drinking some wine and enjoying a respite from life’s perceived “musts”. Someone said watching TV was a way to escape the goals they never set. Sitting still watching TV or talking about nonsense made my nerves stand on edge. I got irritable, tense and eventually I had to get up and do something.

One might think this has served me well. Avoiding TV and getting things done would appear to be an irrefutable good thing. It also resonates with the high achievers mantra of “always working hard and long”. But resting is crucial for long term success. If you don’t let your body, mind and soul rest and recharge you will break sooner or later. Always pushing works for a really long time, right up until it doesn’t any more. And then when you fall you fall hard.

I needed to change my view on resting. The first change was the definition of the activity in itself. It needed to be changed from “wasting time” to “loving and caring for myself”. The second was to change the actual activity I was doing while I was resting. I couldn’t get watching inane TV shows to mean I was loving myself no matter how hard I tried.

What does the word resting trigger within you?

My colleague at work, who was planning to spend a week or two in her hammock, is someone I know and respect. She delivers high value, she works hard and committed and I admire her. When she, with such certainty and obviousness, gave herself permission, to do what outwardly appeared as nothing, she led the way for me. All of a sudden I could look at my life and consider what resting would mean to me.

How about you? Do you get enough rest in your life? What would be a truly restorative activity for you? It’s not always easy to uncover since it can be very different depending on the individual and on the circumstances. Sometimes there’s an available shortcut to finding out things about yourself by using your feelings towards your peer group.

Close your eyes and picture someone you love being in trouble due to high stress levels and too little rest. Imagine this person not being aware of the need for rest and not seeing the limit of burn out drawing near. If you were to recommend this person some rest, what would you suggest as a truly resting activity?

Active rest is a good start

After redefining rest into something that was necessary, and as taking care of myself, I worked on finding the right resting activities for me.

For a time “active resting” became my crutch. Active rest means you stop whatever you’re doing and switch into something else that is still active. For example going to the gym or cleaning your house. I told myself that I was resting while I still got things done and still felt productive. It was working well for me for a long time but eventually the activities I chose wouldn’t restore me anymore. I’d feel increasingly tired and no matter how much I slept I would still wake up without energy. I came to accept that there were still some layers to this resting idea.

You need to restore yourself both physically and mentally. Sometimes your body needs actual sleep and stillness. Laying down, breathing deeply and calmly will start the repairing processes in your body. The same goes for your mind. If you spend most of your day trying to solve problems, analyzing situations and making tough decisions your mind needs time to center back into stillness.

Rest yourself into success

If you want to argue, that you don’t have time to rest, then think about the time you’ll be wasting when you’ve burned out. Also consider how much smarter you are when you are at your best. Making smarter decisions and working on the right things will move you forward faster than just grinding away at random things.

There’s another argument for resting properly. The feelings you experience on a daily basis will determine how you perceive the quality of your life. If you spend every day on the edge of energy deficit you will soon start to perceive your life as too tough and tiresome. It’s just no fun living without energy and vitality.

How would your life change if you made resting a natural part of you day and as a result you freed up more energy?