Feeling worn out and weary? Maybe it’s time to get serious about Rest and Recovery!
If your midlife is anything like mine (and that of most of the women I know!), it’s busy, tiring and more ‘full-up’ of trying to be productive, keeping all the balls in the air and all the people happy than is probably helpful or healthy for our sanity and wellbeing.
So if you are anything like me, you may also find yourself on a treadmill of busyness and feelings of drain and tiredness.
And that busyness is not just about our time being filled, it’s also mental and emotional busyness that takes up energy and headspace.
As I was thinking about how tired I feel this week after a particularly busy few weeks (and some nights of shonky sleep) a chance conversation with my Teen about his gym training schedule got me thinking that there is a much-overlooked remedy to the weariness.
One that I already know, but just don’t ‘do’ very well.
It’s not about better boundaries, or about being more efficient or productive or better at managing our time (although these may come into it).
Nor is it about being more ‘resilient’ by bracing yourself, gritting your teeth and building your stamina and resistance by pushing on through – believing this is the only choice we have.
I’m talking about REST.
The importance of REST for wellbeing
The conversation with my son was about him taking a break from his intense gym schedule, because he’s feeling tired. And we talked about his scheduled ‘rest’ periods that form part of his overall big-picture training strategy.
Because constant training at high intensity far from strengthening his physical form actually weakens it. His muscles and tendons become tight, tired and stressed, and that’s when injuries happen. By interspersing gentler sessions, and longer rest periods in-between sessions, he intentionally allows his muscles to repair and heal. And it’s THIS that strengthens those muscles.
We get the same message when we look to Nature too.
Other life doesn’t ‘keep going’ at full speed ALL the time.
My cat is a case in point.
He sleeps A LOT.
He also has many periods during the day when he is just chilling. He’s not really sleeping (although he does do a lot of that too!) he is just dozing and reclining. And he does this even more when he’s had a busy night hunting, or if he’s been in a fight. His body knows that when these things happen, it needs a couple of days of doing even less than usual, in order for it to repair and heal.
So why can’t we do the same?
Our Barriers to Rest
Because we create a story that doing ‘nothing’ (which is what we see resting as) is lazy, a waste of time, unproductive (that’s the point!), pointless. We think we’ll somehow get ‘behind’. We tell ourselves we don’t have time.
The thing is though…
Rest is not lazy.
It’s not unproductive.
For sure we can’t ‘see’ the results if we try and measure it in the way we usually consider being productive.
But we sure as heck can FEEL the benefits.
We sure as eggs is eggs feel it when we DON’T do it.
And we can see the impact on our productivity & wellbeing when we avoid it.
Because our energy drops, our capacity do deal with things is diminished, we are less effective.
Worst case, our health suffers, we crash and we burn-out.
We NEED rest to function at our best
Our mind and body NEEDS rest just as much as it needs exercise, water and nutrition
It’s an essential part of the maintenance our body REQUIRES to keep us physically, physiologically, psychologically and emotionally healthy.
Time and space for rest, in order to recover from the barrage of demands, doing, thinking, feeling that we are subjected to every day, is just as important for us as it is for elite athletes (or cats!).
This is not pink made up fluff, the academic research tells us this is true.
Our experience tells us it’s true.
If we look to Mother Nature, she tells us it’s true.
And it makes perfect sense when you really think about it
But it’s not just about getting more sleep.
Sleep is certainly a necessary form of rest (so important in fact I’m dedicating next week’s blog to it), but it’s not the ONLY form of rest.
We need different Types of Rest
Research carried out by Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith uncovered different types of rest that we routinely need to attend to at different times, to differing degrees, so it’s worth being aware of what they are. The key ones are:
Physical Rest: This is the rest we probably think of first, as it refers to those times when we feel physically weary, low on energy, perhaps with aches and pains, and maybe tired from lack of sleep. When we are feeling like this, our body is telling us it needs to rest. This could be by sleeping (keep an eye out for next weeks’ blog for more on this!) or it might be taking a nap, sitting with a book or a magazine, or maybe doing some gentle stretching, taking a bath, having a massage.
Mental Rest: our daily lives require us to solve problems, make decisions, analyse, evaluate, interpret, juggle multiple different things, concentrate for long periods – all things that use our conscious ‘directed attention’ circuits in our brain. And just like everything else, they can become fatigued, and overused. Which is when it can become really hard to focus and concentrate. We end up reading the same paragraph over and over and the information just doesn’t go in. Or we become unable to make even a simple decision like ‘do I want a cup of tea?’.
To rest our mind, we need to switch ‘off’ the directed attention centre, doing things that don’t require us to actively think. So short breaks during the day to allow our minds to drift and wander will work wonders. This could look like playing with a pet, listening to music (and maybe having a little dance in the kitchen!), maybe meditating or heading outside for a sit or a trundle in nature.
Allowing our minds to wander will also boost your creativity – so if you’re feeling stuck creatively, get outside for a walk – the psychological restorative powers of nature are truly magical!!
Social Rest: Our days can be filled with social interaction – meetings, coffee with friends, networking, chats in the playground (or on the dog walk), client calls and so on – and this is especially true at this festive time of year, and in midlife when we are juggling many things that often require conversations with other people (childcare, eldercare, doctors, parents, children, spouses, clients etc etc). This can be particularly draining if you are an Introvert or a highly Sensitive Person, and it’s worth acknowledging that it’s OK to decline invitations, to be intentional about who we spend our time with, how often and for how long and to build ‘Alone Time Buffers’ into our schedule!
Emotional Rest: As women, we often carry a high emotional load in our lives. Our work is often quite emotionally demanding, we are usually the glue that holds family life together, the ones who are the primary carers, supporters and nurturers, and we are unfailing there for our friends when they need us. And unless we are intentionally building in ways to replenish our needs, this this can lead to our emotional reserves becoming depleted, leading to overwhelm and feelings of stress. Creating opportunities to off-load by talking to others or journalling, making time for things that we know calm and soothe our nervous system and our emotions, and which help to fill our cup, are key to ensuring that our emotional resilience is at its best.
This is another critical one if you are a Highly Sensitive Person and particularly attuned to other people’s emotional worlds. This can make The News an added drain on your reserves and for me emotional rest and recovery means I rarely read or look at the news. It’s ‘too much’.
Sensory Rest: Human beings are complex multisensory beings, and the modern world is full to overflowing with things that stimulate our senses: our devices which give us constant notifications and reminders, busy screens, bright lights, constant background noise from cars, trains, machines, people talking, strong smells and so on – our sensory system needs to take a break from time to time. And if you’re a Highly Sensitive Person (like me) making time to go somewhere quiet, alone, to shut out the stimulation is something that you will need to do OFTEN, sometimes many times a day, in order to avoid the inevitable sensory overload and overwhelm that will inevitably result if you don’t (especially at this time of year!).
You may also choose to do as I do, and switch off your notifications, limit screen time to specific times during the day, limit the time you spend in busy places!
Spiritual Rest: For Dr. Dalton-Smith this refers to those times when we might feel a bit disconnected from ourselves, and maybe the world around us, such that we need to take some time our for reflection and introspection, so we can feel more connected to our inner-world again. Journalling, meditating or spending time connecting with nature are all good ways of helping this process.
Let’s rest ON PURPOSE!
For many of us Midlife is a time when most of these rest areas are stretched and challenged more than ever, particularly if we’re also in the midst of peri-menopause/menopause. So it becomes even more important for us to be intentional about creating opportunities for rest and recovery as part of our routine self-care strategy.
To help us, I think we need to reframe how we think about rest, so we see it not as a ‘reward when we have achieved something productive’ but rather as a NECESSARY part of our routine self-care that ENABLES us to be more productive, and that we therefore need to be intentional about.
personally I already do quite a bit to look after my needs in all these areas, but I don’t do enough and I know this is something I need to do more work on. So as we head into the busy, spangly, merry Xmas period I will be putting more intentional rest breaks into my schedule each week to ensure everything feels magical not mayhem!
The specific rest I will do in those breaks will be guided by what I have going on, and which area needs most attention.
How about you?
Are you good at scheduling rest, or is it something you need to work on too?
Which type of rest do you need today?
Reference: Dalton-Smith, S. (2018) Sacred Rest: Recover your life, renew your energy, restore your sanity. E-book