Rest as our companion to productivity: And who knew there are different types!

I’ve just come off a staycation, a covid vacation at home where a booking for travel has been paused, rebooked, and well the home becomes the holiday house. I invested in 10 days of resting. I didn’t open an email. I didn’t work on any work projects. And well I embraced hanging out at home in a different way: cooking new recipes, baking, and watching various streaming services. I caught up with friends for our lockdown project Academics Talk About The Chair, walked, chatted with neighbours without having to rush off to the next zoom meeting, and rode my bike. I set the intention to rest.

What I noticed when I rested was that it looked different on different days. And my needs for resting were different at different times - sometimes it was physical, other times, cognitive, and sometimes it was emotional.

I took a recent deep dive into rest and sleep with Thesis Whisperer recently for the On The Reg podcast while Jason was on #epictrip2021 and we spent time talking about our sleep habits, amongst other things.

Rest and sleep. We know we need both. Some of us need more than others. And at different times we need more than at others. They are different, but what exactly are they and how can they help us?

Sleep is about helping the body heal and process. Without sleep you can not form or maintain the pathways in your brain that support you to learn and create new memories. Without sleep it is harder to respond in a timely manner and concentrate. Most adults need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep each night. And the amount is just as important as the quality.

Rest is about restoration. For a long time I actually thought rest was one thing, that is, to stop and do nothing. And if you are like me, I’ve struggled with that for a long time. I actually had to be taught how to do the “do nothing rest”. But rest can look and feel different as your brain needs idle time and taking breaks helps us reset.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith in her TEDxAltanta talk tells us that there are seven kinds of rest. And here’s a surprise, sleep is only one of the seven kinds of rest. Hello! This interrupts what many of us have grown up with, thinking we are resting when we are sleeping or napping. We’ve been getting it slightly wrong all this time. For many of us it has been sleep versus rest - “don’t rest too much or you will impact your sleep”.

So what are they?

Physical rest. This could be passive or active physical rest. Passive physical rest can be sleeping or napping. Active physical rest refers to activities that are gentle and restorative for your mind and body such as yoga, stretching and massage therapy.
Mental rest. This is the rest where we are not actively using our mind, thinking, creating and innovating. Think the opposite to this - mental rest deficit. For example when you go to bed for 8 hours but wake up feeling exhausted, moody and heavy. Or when you lay at night staring at the ceiling as you are thinking about a new idea or fixing that problem at work or running over a script in your head about you are going to respond to someone who has perhaps frustrated you. We need mental rest and down time to quieten the mind. This might look like scheduling short breaks throughout the day to support calming the brain. Utilizing a notebook is another great one to capture thoughts and know you can stop thinking about them as your future self can also refer back to the notebook.
Spiritual rest. Ability to connect beyond the mental and physical with a connection to meaning where you engage in something that restores you beyond emotional and cognitive work. Tuning into your inner self here is one of the areas you may address.
Emotional rest. This is where you tune into your emotional needs, embracing the natural ups and downs. You perhaps might pay a little bit more attention to those emotions of anger, frustration or overwhelm, tuning into what they are really telling you. Or you may need to dial down positive energy such as zest, excitement or enthusiasm if you have been engaging at these levels a little too much. You may consider at this time eliminating people pleasing behaviour, exploring courage to lean into being authentic and being able to connect to being present, acknowledging the natural ups and downs but with optimism.
Social rest. This is a big one as others can energise us or de-energise us. Sometime we feel rested spending time with certain people, and other times we need a break from people and a little me time is super energising. Knowing what relationships energise us rather than zap us is key for this rest type. Knowing when we need breaks from friends or colleagues. Knowing where me time is required. These are all a part of social rest.
Sensory rest. Thinking about all the sensors here - sound, touch, smell, sight and taste. Consider what these might be for you. Removal of background noise, juggling lots of different projects, or bright lights. Avoiding certain food to minimise triggers with smell or taste. You might explore closing your eyes in the middle of the day. Intentional unplugging from tech at moments thoughts out the day.
Creative rest. Creating a space/environment for you that supports you to generate new ideas, be in flow, create, problem solve, and find solutions. This is a rest time when you really can be in flow and just explore. We often forget about this rest type, but it is incredibly powerful.

Rest is the most underused gift to yourself. Where do you use most of your energy in a day? How do you counteract this with the rest type?

So how might we do this?

Explore

If you are attending a conference or workshop in real life or virtually that involves working with others, networking, processing ideas, making connections and engaging in spaces with lights, sound, screens that are all systems go, the social and mental (and possibly the sensory, emotional and creative) are in full swing. Explore how you can use rest that is complementary to all the different actions you are undertaking at this time.
If you are writing new words at the moment for a paper or your thesis. Explore what you can do to support mental and creative rest.
If you are navigating a tension in a relationship with a supervisor or colleague, consider how emotional and social rest can support you to process, step away, and pause before you respond.
If you are so inspired but overwhelmed with ideas and not sure where to start, explore how creative and emotional rest paired with physical rest could support you.

Coach yourself

Book in time in your diary and add in rest breaks. But let’s do these with a difference….how might they look across the seven types of rest? We schedule everything else in our diary, but we often forget to schedule in rests that help us feel rejuvenated and reinvigorated. Can you schedule 10 minute rest breaks for these according to what your day looks like?

Creative rest? For example: Journaling at the end of the day or writing new words at the start.
Physical rest? For example: A 15 minute power nap, a guided meditation, a stretch, a walk outside, a moment where you garden or exercise/training.
Spiritual rest? For example: A moment where you connect to your breath, where you undertake a self-compassionate soothing touch or loving kindness meditation.
Social rest? For example: A break that doesn't involve anyone, reaching out to someone who inspires you, make time for someone who is optimistic, write a note of thanks to colleagues or friends, or schedule in me time.
Emotional rest? For example: Note what you are grateful for the day, ask someone “what is the best thing that has happened to them today?” (this gleans such a different response from asking how are you?), lean into being curious about how you can engage with positive emotions such as joy, find times to laugh, or put into place that boundary you are trying to establish for yourself and plan for how you educate others around you in an authentic way about what you are doing and why.
Mental rest? For example: Listen to a podcast or watch a part of a streaming show that allows you to rest your mind, hang out the washing as a break between writing, go for a walk around the block to process what you have just read, mind map your thinking with pen and paper rather than just tying your notes, or trying a different technique to how you approach tasks for example pomodoros.
Sensory rest? For example: Turn the lights off, walk away from screens, turn the volume down, take a break from doing, move rooms, or shift from one way of doing something to another such as engaging with a reading via listening to it.

Stop

Rushing
Continually just working thinking you will rest later, when we know you won't
Working through low energy. Rest and rejuvenation help us process and support us to be more attentive (and probably more productive when we do return to the task).
Working through meal and exercise breaks.

Invest in

Allocating time to sleep, and preparing the best you can for this
Allocating time for rest
Talking about what rest looks like for you so you can learn with and from others

How can you be kinder to yourself by planning for your rest moments?

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Listen to Inger Mewburn (aka Thesis Whisperer) and I talk about rest and productivity here for On The Reg podcast

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Thanks to SpaceJoy on Unsplash for image.