Why rest is different to sleep

While I bundle sleep and rest together as one of the 8 Foundations or Pillars of Health, rest is different to sleep. 

As Chis Kresser articulates, rest happens when you are AWAKE, doing SOMETHING THAT YOU ENJOY, and THAT DOESN’T HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH WORK.

Our hunter gatherer ancestors would punctuate their days resting when they were not under obligation to hunt, gather or attend to other duties. Rest is a requirement of our ancient DNA to function properly. Deep rest activates our parasympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system. Repair and digestion can take place along with cultivating mental calmness, emotional stability and set the scene for sound sleep. Today however our modern lives are characterised by a chaos of busy-ness as we fly from one task to the other without pausing for breath. Productivity and working “around the clock” are often seen as badges of honour. This comes at a great cost to our nervous system (which is always on high alert), and to our overall health. Deep rest becomes even more important when we individually and collectively are under heightened levels of stress and uncertainty.

Contrary to the way I was raised, resting during waking hours is not a waste of time, nor an indulgence, nor a luxury, nor a sign of being lazy, irrespective of a long To DO list (that ‘to do’ list will never end by the way). Rest is not something to feel guilty about (it took me a long time to learn that). Rest is a necessity. Period. 

One challenge many people face (especially business owners) is that the boundaries between work and rest have become so blurred that it’s impossible to distinguish one from the other (especially when you love what you do so much that it doesn’t feel like ‘work’). This makes it very easy to be in work mode 100% of the time except for when you’re sleeping. But here’s the thing- working and getting ample sleep isn’t enough. You need to rest too.

So you need to carve out time to actually rest without guilt. Even if you get ample sleep if you don’t rest and you spend your days in work mode you risk burning out, or ultimately not being as healthy, vibrant and productive as you could be. Ideally having one FULL DAY off a week to rest is the best option to allow the body to move into parasympathetic mode and allow you to become even more productive. Sometimes our best ideas and revelations come to us in this environment.

Rest can take many forms and can be both active or passive. Here are some examples (some of which fall within some of the other 7 Foundations of Health):

🙏🏻meditate

🙏🏻spend time in nature

🙏🏻journal or write or draw 

🙏🏻sit or lie in the sun or in your favourite indoor space doing nothing except just being

🙏🏻read a non work related work

🙏🏻dance, do yoga or other movement

🙏🏻talk with a friend/loved one not about work

🙏🏻play games /puzzles

🙏🏻laze in bed

🙏🏻cook

🙏🏻spend time in a garden/ do gardening

🙏🏻have a massage

I hope this will inspire you to have some guilt-free rest time each day.