3 Tips to Help You Rest Well
3 TIPS TO HELP YOU REST WELL:
01. Knowing the different types of rest and which one you need and when you need it.
If you feel like maybe you struggle to rest, it could be because you’re not giving yourself the type of rest that you really need. Let’s go through what the 7 types of rest are and how you know which one or ones you need.
So the 7 types of rest are:
⋒ Physical Rest
⋒ Mental Rest
⋒ Creative Rest
⋒ Emotional Rest
⋒ Sensory Rest
⋒ Social Rest
⋒ Spiritual Rest
For example, maybe you’re in need of sensory rest so when you sit on the couch and binge your favorite show on Netflix (Gilmore Girls or New Girl for me) you feel less rested than when you sat down.
When I first started to take rest seriously, not getting the kind I actually needed was one of the biggest stumbling blocks for me. When you’re leaning into the “wrong” kind of rest to meet your needs, it’s as though you are running on a hamster wheel - you feel like you should be feeling refreshed but instead, you just feel tense and aggravated, and maybe guilty.
When we get the rest we need, we’re less likely to struggle with guilt or anxiousness surrounding rest because our bodies are getting exactly what they require and you can feel that shift toward feeling refreshed.
02. Schedule your rest so you never find yourself running on fumes or waiting until it’s too late to rest.
This is MONEY when it comes to resting well! Why? Because number 1, if we don’t schedule in rest, it’s not gonna happen. When you don’t schedule your rest ahead of time, is when you say things like, “Oh once XYZ is done then I’ll rest.”
This is what it means to think you have to earn rest. That XYZ list keeps growing and you don’t end up resting until you have literally nothing left and by that point, it’s not even resting, it’s zombie-ing out in front of the TV until you pass out into one of those sleeps where you wake up feeling like you got hit by a truck, ya know? Not what I’d consider real rest.
And number 2, when you schedule your rest it really alleviates the guilt factor.
I’m ALL about time blocking. I put my rest on my schedule! This helps me for a few reasons. I know when to expect rest so I can look forward to it and seeing it on my calendar kind of gives me the mental permission that I’m doing exactly what I should be doing which is resting.
I’ll be very honest - resting well does take practice. It’s the same thing as anything else - unless you’re some sort of prodigy, you’re probably not gonna be great at something right away. You have to keep practicing to get better and resting is no different.
Especially if you consider yourself a recovering workaholic or hustle culture-aholic or goal-aholic. I identify as having struggled with all of those in the past. When I first started resting regularly, I had to push past feeling guilty or like I “should” be doing something else. I had ingrained in my brain that rest was a waste of time for so long that it took a good solid 6 months of re-programming those kinds of thoughts and reframing my thought process around rest.
When planning your week the Hustle Sanely way and doing your weekly prep meeting, one of the steps is to schedule in your weekly rest.
Pro tip - don’t feel like you need to know ahead of time what you’re going to do to rest, just block off the time on your weekly schedule so that you know at the start of the week when you’re dedicated rest time is. Treat it like you would a meeting or an appointment.
As far as a rest schedule, I don’t think there is a one size fits all approach here but I’m happy to share what I’ve found works for me as far as how much rest I need.
I dedicate one day a week to hardcore rest and then I also have routines in my daily life that weave rest into every day (we’ll talk about that next). For my one day a week, I call Saturdays my Sabbath. I practice taking an entire day to just focus on being instead of doing. It looks different every week, depending on what kind of rest my body needs that week but I can tell you that since starting this weekly Sabbath practice in January, it has transformed me as a human.
Keep in mind that we all have different capacities and require different amounts of rest. It’s gonna take some trial and error to determine what your rest needs are.
I am serious when I say that resting takes practice so even if you feel a little rocky at first when you try and rest (like maybe you’re thinking about your work to-do list or struggling to justify that going out to paddleboard is just as productive as deep cleaning your house one day) keep going!
And if you need help creating a schedule that includes your rest then I’ve got you covered – in the How to Create Your Peacefully Productive Schedule course, I teach you how to weave rest into your life in a real and sustainable way.
03. Weave rest into your daily life instead of waiting for long stretches of rest.
If you’re living for the weekend or living for your next vacation – you’re doing it wrong. Those are not healthy ways to live! Obviously, you can be stoked for Friday or your next getaway but you can also live in a way where you don’t feel like you desperately need those things to keep going.
When we weave rest into our daily lives, we set ourselves up to thrive rather than just survive. Plus, when we operate from a place of rest regularly, we are able to enjoy our weekends and vacations more because we’re not exhausted to our core.
I’m going to walk you through some ways that I weave daily rest into my life so that they can spark some ideas for you:
⋒ My morning routine:
Instead of jumping right into my to-do list for the day, I spend the first hour in my mornings reading, journaling, and praying and this positions me to start my day filled up rather than running on E.
⋒ My lunchtime routine:
Lately, for my lunchtime routine, I’ve been going on a 15-minute technology-free prayer walk and it’s been so great for my mental (and obviously physical) health. This walk gives me mental rest, social rest, creative rest, and spiritual rest all in one!
⋒ My evening routine:
2 things that I do in the evening that help integrate rest into my daily life are:
1. Having a transition activity between work time and home time. For me, it’s usually sitting outside in my egg chair and reading for like 20 minutes.
2. Being off of social media by 8:30 PM. This helps my mind chill out in the evenings which helps me sleep better.
Do you sense the pattern here? I’ve made rest part of my routines so that they are no-brainer parts of my days. I’m never itching to rest because rest is so regular in my life because of my habits.
Some other quickie rest ideas for you:
⋒ Instead of flopping down on the couch right when you get home from work and turning on the TV, spend 10 minutes in your backyard getting some fresh air without technology. Meditate, read a book, or just rest your eyes for a moment. Give your body a chance to truly decompress.
⋒ On your way to work, instead of listening to the radio, create a worship playlist and listen to that instead.
⋒ Facetime your best friend during your lunch break.
⋒ Take a 15-20 minute break after 2 hours of work – did you know there’s science behind taking breaks and how it helps us increase our productivity? Another episode for another time.
Rest looks different for everyone and that’s okay! My best friend LOVES having a movie day to rest whereas I really enjoy heading outside for physical activity to help me rest. And it’s also very normal for your rest to look different every day/week. It’s going to depend on what kind of rest you’re needing.
The key is figuring out what refreshes you…what kinds of activities or habits can you do every day that makes you feel renewed?
Remember, rest takes practice! Don’t give up after just a few weeks of implementing rest routines into your life.
You are worth getting the rest that you need to show up as the best version of you!
Want to learn how to create a schedule that weaves regular rest into your life?
If you enjoyed this blog post, tune into episode 128 of The Hustle Sanely Podcast to dive deeper into this topic:
