What Are the 5 Ways to Rest? Read on to find out how to truly restore your body!
Most of us look forward to booking time off over the summer and have annual leave or holidays from our business. It’s usually jam-packed with things we wouldn’t normally get to do and plans to meet up with friends we haven’t seen in forever, but how many of the things we plan actually focus on rest? As the team at SKPT embark on a break over the summer, with no six-week changer starting in July, we thought it was a good time to talk about REST! Most of us think it’s something that comes from a good night’s sleep, or a day out of work but there are actually several ways to rest and all of these need attention at different points in our life and affect how we function. It’s important to know what they are and to consider if you do actually rest. If your answer is a firm no, maybe it’s time for some changes to see you bouncing back and feeling really refreshed after summer.
Emotional Rest
Emotional rest can seem like quite a difficult concept for some people that are used to keeping things moving through hard times and adversity. Maybe you know someone that always says they’re alright and never seems to crack under pressure despite having a run of bad luck. On the surface, these personality traits seem like great attributes to have but in reality, failing to address our emotional needs, burying our feelings and guarding our hearts with a lock and a key can lead to anxiety, depression and trauma responses that can leave our nervous system in a state of unrest. Your nervous system is made up of 3 parts, your brain, your spinal cord and your nerves. It is like the centre of our body’s processing system and is the central network of thinking, feeling, learning and action our body makes.
To restore and recover your capacity to process emotions by taking steps to get rid of stress and tension, or find healthy ways to bring yourself back down to a state of calmness after emotionally taxing events. Often we think we have avoided any emotional scarring because we didn’t cry, or get upset, but we may be ignoring the clenching of our jaw, or the tightness and pain in our back and our shoulders up around our ears.
Good ways to achieve emotional rest:
- Be kind to yourself
- Find therapies and outlets that allow you the room to share your feelings
- Share spaces with friends and family that leave you energised, not drained
- Allow yourself space to work through emotions or feelings that you’re unsure about
Step away from situations that create a feeling of sensory overload – busy public places, ongoing digital notifications, and a busy household! Take a moment – two minutes and close the door, put your phone away or sit in the car and close your eyes until you feel connected to every part of your body from head to toe.
Physical Rest
People often think that getting an early night or the recommended eight hours is all the rest their body needs. Sleep and rest, although both useful, aren’t quite the same thing and it’s important to know the difference and make time to do both. Sleep is necessary, but not always the answer to reaching an optimal state of rest as our bodies move through various cycles of sleep states. There are four sleep stages through REM and deep sleep, with some awake cycles, so eight hours of sleep doesn’t necessarily mean eight hours of rest. The solution to promoting rest and well-being is to combine your gym activity with more restorative forms of movement, such as yoga, pilates swimming and massage therapy.
Sensory Rest
This is a big one in a world that functions and depends heavily on technology. Combining that with the mix of multiple conversations we are exposed to every day as we immerse ourselves in so different settings: at work, on the commute, dropping the kids off, at the gym talking to people in your class, team meetings – whether virtual or in-person, doing the food shop and then the people trying to reach us, sell us things or expecting an answer with immediacy on the various social platforms we may use. It’s difficult to think of a moment when we can genuinely say we’re disconnected. Electronic device fatigue is a real thing, it became particularly prevalent in 2020 when the world ended up working online overnight, people having to make makeshift offices in less-than-perfect conditions and in an incredibly stressful global environment. There are simple ways to try and reduce the sensory overload you feel throughout the day and it’s important to create clear boundaries about how you spend your time and make space to be away from those things that overload your sensory processors.
Sensory Saviours
- Take time out of your day from your job every two hours at least; whether you work on a computer or with people. Having five minutes to regroup, close your eyes, ground yourself and detach from any electronic attachments is important in order to allow our brain to function at its best.
- Leave your phone at home if you can, or leave it outside of your door at night so you’re not tempted to get lost in scrolling when you could be decompressing away from bright lights and background noise, leading to becoming overstimulated and not being able to “switch off”.
- Create boundaries about when you will and won’t fill your day with meetings or even make dates to catch up with friends. Free time can be spent giving back to yourself and not others, remember it’s okay to be busy relaxing and you don’t need to justify your why to anyone else.
Mental Rest
Do you ever wake up from sleep and feel like you’ve mentally run a marathon? Or have you ever woken in the night to use the toilet and had your mind flooded with all of the things you have to do the next day? If engaging with your daily list of tasks is causing you anxiety paralysis, or leaving you deeply tired – even after what you consider a good night, maybe it’s time to take a mental rest. Mental fatigue can come quite often to people that are constantly trying to achieve something, or complete everything they see as a priority – actually struggling to prioritise themselves, or poorly managing the load they have on them whether through personal or professional commitments.
So, what can you do about it?
Sitting down to get everything out of our heads and down onto paper can be the best starting point for us to get on top of a big mental load. There is a great technique you can read more about here. The activity requires a piece of paper and a pen, writing down everything that is causing you anxiety or worry on one side and on the opposite side, writing down what you can actually do about each of those things at that moment.
With things written down in front of you, you can consider what you want to prioritise, what is outside of your control and what can be left until later.
Creative Rest
You might not have yourself down as the creative type, but leading on projects at work, thinking of new ways to market yourself or your products, outfit ideas for the kid’s next themed world book day and brainstorming during team meetings are all signs of our creative mind being put to work. We can knowingly or not become the person everyone depends on to solve problems at home or at work. Taking a break from these responsibilities could look like; taking a trip somewhere green, taking a 15-minute break out of your work day to breathe deeply and take a moment to clear your lungs, or a yoga class to focus your mind and push away all of those demands on your time. It could even be a simple visualisation of beautiful places on your screen if you’re in the office most days. Doing something that is a creative passion, reading, painting, singing, making a new playlist or building something can all help you take a mental vacation from supporting and problem-solving for others.
Rest can also mean following an easy, guided programme to maximise your health and fitness, without the mental load of managing your exercise plan. Let us manage your gym routine and help you feel great all summer by investing in the next six-week changer.
Why not get in touch with us today, drop an email to hello@skptgym.co.uk or head over to Instagram. You can also check out our online shop or follow us for daily updates.