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. 

Our convenient modern lifestyle now not so convenient

By now I hope you all fully appreciate that diet and other lifestyle factors are the driving force behind not only the epidemic of chronic illness and degenerative disease but also your resilience against viruses and other acute illnesses. 

When your lifestyle factors (what you eat, drink, think, breathe, and how much you move, get into nature and sleep etc) are incongruent with our genes / biology, the result of the mismatch will be a lowering of the immune system, and hence greater susceptibility to viruses, illness and disease. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. As I’ve always argued, your health has less to do with your hard coded genes (genetics) and more to do with your lifestyle factors (epigenetics). 

Our modern environment—including ultra-processed and refined food, tap water, too much sedentary time, not enough sleep, excess exposure to artificial light and non native EMFs, use of toxic personal care products and household cleaning products, pharmaceuticals and chronic stress — all serve to lower our vibrational frequency, our health, our immunity and our resilience to pathogens and viruses that are around us all the time. 

We are now being exposed to pathogenic threats and a level of toxicity that the immune system of the average person simply struggles to deal with. Focusing on building strong immunity and strong physical and emotional resilience is taking on greater importance in our modern life. While others were investing in the stock market, I’ve been investing in my health for the last couple decades (not that they are mutually exclusive but the latter always seemed more of a priority because without one’s health, life isn’t so enjoyable). 

If you’ve invested in your health by focusing on a really solid traditional wholefoods diet and other lifestyle factors then trust that your strong immune system will afford you the resilience to fight off viruses and pathogens that we are constantly exposed to. Fear, worry and stress will serve to lower your immunity and undo your hard work. 

Our hunter gatherer ancestors lived their life in a way that constantly served to strengthen their resilience and immunity to optimise their survival. They knew that the survival of the tribe depended on the spectacular strength, speed and vibrant health of every member of the tribe. There were no a safety nets back then so making lifestyle choices that were incongruent to vibrant health would mean sudden death and ostracism from the tribe. 

Today we have the “luxury” of making lifestyle choices that undermine our health, making us increasingly susceptible to viruses, illness and disease. As a society, we have grown to simply condone these choices as “normal” driven largely by the clever marketing and deep pockets of big pharma and big business who push pills of convenience, foods of convenience and technologies of convenience on us. There is nothing convenient now about my children and I not being able to go to the beach, hug our friends or being robbed of basic freedoms that define us as humans. There is nothing convenient about a crashing economy, small businesses being shut down or the loss of one’s livelihood. Poor lifestyle choices are now a “luxury” we simply can’t afford if the human race has any chance of survival. 

We have the choice of co-creating a healthier human existence starting with making healthier lifestyle choices for our ourselves and for the planet. The food and the products you buy and the choices you make each and every day speak volumes about the type of world you want to live in. I’ve always advocated for change at the grass roots level. We individually and collectively are powerful beyond measure. But the question is: are you willing to make healthier changes? 

In the word’s of Neale Donald Walsh in Conversations With God:

“You can choose to end the destruction of your rain forests tomorrow.

You can choose to stop depleting the protective layer hovering over your planet.

You can choose to discontinue the ongoing onslaught of your earth’s ingenious ecosystem.

You can seek to halt the inexorable melting of snow -

But will you do it?”

My raw and real musings on motherhood and our limited edition Mother’s Day offering

Motherhood. 

The most rewarding yet difficult endeavour I have ever embarked upon. My children bring me endless wonderment coupled with exasperation (and which dose is greater depends on the day and depends on the kid in question). I have never experienced a love so pure, intense and unconditional as the love I have for my children. Yet motherhood is by far a vocation that is more painful than anything I have ever experienced. Just when I thought things were getting easier, they turned into a tween and a teen which makes the toddler years look like a walk in the park. 

The shadows of guilt, shame and incompetence over my parenting often haunt me. And the more I talk to other mothers (no matter how zen or perfect they appear, or how many parenting books, courses or programs they have completed) the more I realise that I am not alone. So I’m here to tell you that no mother is perfect and that whatever you’re feeling I guarantee that we have all felt it. We are all doing our best to raise children in an increasingly challenging world and without the village and the natural environment that children have evolved to be raised in. And those mismatches in themselves bring a myriad of issues. 

While the impact mothers have on their children etches deep and can last generations (for better or for worse) the saving grace is that our children are incredibly forgiving and resilient, and each day is a new start with new intentions. 

The passing of my own mother to dementia last year has given me great cause to stop and ponder the fragility of life. When there is nothing left to say there’s always “I’m sorry, and I love you”. 

As mothers, we not only bring forth life, we feed, nurture, care, support, love and protect with all our hearts. Yes motherhood involves pain and suffering but it also involves wonder and joy. And let’s not forget that as we celebrate our special day in May. 

Last year my son asked me “Mum, why did you have children?” My response: “To grow as a person…. To love and to be loved in returned, to teach you what I know and to learn from you in return.” Indeed, my children are my greatest teachers, my shiny mirrors reflecting back everything I dislike in myself and exquisitely pressing my buttons in a way that only they know how to press.  They will keep pressing and pushing until I show up as the best possible version of myself – happy, confident, capable, fair, supportive, honest, accessible, with clear boundaries. If they don’t feel I’m stepping up in any one of these areas, they will poke and prod (“act out”) until I step up.  As my children grow and mature, I feel it’s an opportunity for me to grow and mature as a person. There are many lessons to embrace, as every mother knows. 

So I dedicate this newsletter to my mother, and to mothers everywhere, who have done and who are doing so much for their children. I see at Broth Bar, coming to my talks and doing my classes, driven by a desire to provide the best possible start to your childrens’ lives. It warms my heart to think that the next generation of children that we are raising will be more robust, resilient, taller, smarter and beautiful than our generation, due to our hard work. And for that we can pat ourselves on the back! 

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To celebrate, acknowledge and honour the mothers in our lives and the incredible role they play, we have crafted as a Mother’s Day special limited edition, our signature activated macadamia nuts smothered in our signature raw dark chocolate: organic choc coated maccas for mamas! Simply suburb! Who doesn’t love that winning combo!? I hope you enjoy them as much as we have enjoyed bringing them back for sale to you as a Mothers’ Day limited edition. Throw into a larger hamper, or simply gift as a stand alone special treat. These are sure to please the yummiest/tiredest/grumpiest/happiest of mummies – for we are all these things rolled into one plus more ;-) 

Sold exclusively at Broth Bar & Larder. To organise a courier to any area within metropolitan Sydney or Wollongong simply call Broth Bar & Larder on 0421 786 009. Limited quantities available, so get in quick to avoid disappointment. 

“Mothers have the power not only to rock the cradle but to rock the world”
 – Dr. Bernard Jensen