Resting Is Not Another Thing to Check off Your To-Do List

Do you see resting as just another thing to check off on your to-do list?
Is it even on your to-do list?

While there seems to be a growing awareness of the importance of rest for leading a sustainable fulfilling life, few, if any, goal-setting models present rest as something we consciously need to work into our day.

These models invite us to divide our lives into areas (work, fitness, relationships, health, …) or roles (entrepreneur, dancer, friend, health-focused person, …), score how well we’re doing in these areas or roles, and define where we want to get to.

And while they may address “work/life balance” (a term I’m not a fan of, but that’s an article for another time), they focus on doing and achieving things in various areas of your life. Health becomes a goal with numerous to-do items to check off and rest gets represented in goals such as “meditate once a day” or “do yoga twice a week”.

Rest as Doing

If you do a bit of research around rest online, you’ll probably come across the 7 types of rest distinguished by physician and writer Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith.

We all love lists, and her list seems to resonate with people. Let’s have a look at it:

1. Sensory rest

Most of us live in environments where we get input all of the time. Bright lights, street noise, people bumping into us on the street, notifications coming in, … It’s a lot. And it’s not always easy to take a break from.

I regularly come home and just lie down for a while. No music, no looking at my phone (or at least I try not to), no lights on. Just lying down. Just being.

Noise is a big one for me, but for you it may be light or smell or touch.

2. Creative rest

Dr. Dalton-Smith sees creative rest as being open to the beauty in the world and allowing yourself to be inspired by it, whether that means seeking out art, going into nature, or listening to music while doing chores around the house.

Whereas sensory resting consists of letting your senses rest, of stopping input, creative rest requires the opposite: for you to take in beauty so you can then, hopefully, become inspired.

3. Mental rest

Mental rest comes down to engaging in practices that take you away from information processing, decision-making, and problem-solving. That can look like meditating but also like stepping away from your desk to do something that allows you to let your mind wander.

4. Physical rest

Physical rest means allowing your body to recover and your muscles to relax. Sleep is a big part of physical rest, but you can also do yoga nidra or get a massage.

Dr. Dalton-Smith also includes gentle movement practices such as yoga in this category of rest, but while these can certainly be relaxing, I see them more as a way to recharge versus to rest. I’ll share more about this distinction once we’ve finished this list.

5. Spiritual rest

Spiritual rest is defined as the feeling that we belong and that our life has meaning and purpose. Dr. Dalton-Smith says we can achieve spiritual rest by giving back to our community or by cultivating a sense of purpose through a hobby, work, …

6. Social rest

Dr. Dalton-Smith sees social rest as connecting, whether that’s in a joyful way with friends or by asking for support.

7. Emotional rest

According to Dr. Dalton-Smith, emotional rest comes down to figuring out what we need emotionally, expressing that authentically, and then fulfilling our own needs, stopping any behaviors we may have that are hurting our needs, such as people-pleasing, and advocating for our needs through communication.

The problem with this framework

Who am I to go against a renowned expert, right?
I still need to read her book (waiting for it to arrive) and may need to rewrite all of this when I have, but I’m going to share these thoughts anyway.

First of all, I do believe there are different types of rest and, depending on how you’re feeling and where you are in your day, you may need one or another.

For example, if you’ve had a very active day with a lot of social interaction and you’ve used your brain a lot, maybe you do need to simply lie down on the sofa and do nothing. But when you’ve been working on the laptop for hours, what you likely need is to rest your brain and move your body.

In that case, doing something like folding the laundry can be a very restful moment, because you’re creating a context shift in a way that not only are you literally changing context, but you’re changing which battery you’re using energy from (mental versus physical).

I also agree that rest is something we should continuously implement in our lives. We can’t just count on sleep and a few vacations a year to be rested.

That being said, I believe there is a difference between resting, and recharging, even if ever so subtle.

In her book, Dr. Dalton-Smith’s says this: “Rest isn’t about stopping or escaping. It’s about finding a deficit and pouring back into it.”

I disagree. I think rest is about pausing or highly diminishing something. Pouring back into a deficit is recharging.

When I come back from 4 hours of doing dance workshops, I need to both rest my muscles by not using them, and recharge my body by drinking water and eating some protein and carbs.

I can rest my muscles while using my brain. By reading a book, for example. In that case, I’m taking physical rest but not mental rest. However, types of rest like Dr. Dalton-Smith’s creative rest require you to actively seek out things and absorb them. Those types of rest, to me, are not rest. They are forms of recharging.

Instead of pausing something, you are actively doing something.

Recharging is something you can much more easily pour into goals. It comprises activities such as:

• spending time with friends (goal: twice a week)
• meditating (goal: every day)
• going on walks (goal: daily)
• doing yoga (goal: three times a week)
• …

Rest, on the other hand, isn’t something that should be checked off.

Rest is non-doing. It’s not actively using the part of you that needs to rest.

And that means that you can’t just follow a pre-composed list of things to do. You need to check in with yourself and feel what type of rest you need, and how much of it, throughout the day and the week. Continuously.

If you get good at this, you’ll start noticing patterns. You’ll notice after which types of activities you need some rest and how much of it. That awareness then allows you to block out rest on your calendar.

However, when I do this, the actual rest I take – the actual rest I need – never perfectly fits that time block.

And that’s ok.

Rest as a State

We see rest as a thing to do, and what we need to learn is to just be once in a while. And again that doesn’t mean that we just need to sit still, but it means that when we go for a walk, it doesn’t become this thing where we are going for a walk because we want to walk our 10,000 steps while listening to a business or self-development podcast.

You just walk, letting your mind wander and your eyes roam over your surroundings. And when you feel like you’re done walking, you go home. And if you happen upon a park and you want to go sit on a bench, you go sit on the bench.

Don’t look at rest as a thing to do, look at it as a state.
Look at it as a choice to actively not use whatever part of you needs rest.
Give yourself a break, literally: your brain, your body, your social battery, your senses.

You Can’t Rest the Body Without Resting the Brain

Imagine you’re physically tired and you decide to watch a movie on Netflix from the comfort of your sofa. You’ve got a comfi pillow under your head and maybe a blanket on top of you.

Sounds relaxing, right?

You’re not moving anything aside from your arm to grab your cup of tea once in a while, and maybe some popcorn. Surely, you’re resting your body?

But this movie you’re watching isn’t a flat tale in which nothing happens. It has moments of suspense, of action. It has a character that triggers something inside of you and a situation that reminds you of an experience you’ve had. It has funny dialog and deep moments.

You tense up. You hold your breath. You feel yourself getting agitated. You laugh. You cry.

Whatever you put into your brain, can cause a reaction in your body.
You can’t entirely disconnect the body from the brain, which means you also can’t entirely rest the body without resting the brain.

Of course, if your body is tired from an active day outside, watching a movie might feel like utter bliss and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Just keep in mind that you are still feeding your body – your nervous system – input, even if it doesn’t feel that way.

But we rarely just lay down, do we? That’s because …

Rest is Confronting

How many times do you lie down to rest and then start scrolling on your phone, thinking about what you’ll have for dinner, analyzing a social situation from earlier in the day, or mentally trying to solve a work problem?

We don’t just do these things because we unlearned how to rest. We do them because if we don’t give ourselves something to focus on or distract with, who knows what uncomfortable thoughts or feelings might arise.

Rest is confronting. It allows our nervous system to bring forward the things that bother us, the things that are important but that we’re not giving attention because they are hard.

But if you let these things arise, are you still resting?

Well, depending on your capacity at that moment, you can choose to cut your resting time short and focus on whatever has come up, or you can simply make a note of it (literally, in a journal) so you can come back to it later.

Whichever way you go, have it be a conscious decision.

What When We’re in Hustle Mode?

As our businesses evolve, we go through different phases of investment. There are moments when we are in launch mode, when we’re in startup mode, when we’re super excited about something, and when we truly want to put in more hours.

There is nothing wrong with that and, at the same time, I think a lot of us go into these modes by simply moving everything else to the side. We decide to focus on our businesses but don’t consciously decide how and what we’ll “defocus” on.

What that means is that we might rest less and sleep less in the same way that we decrease our social activities, quality time with our partner, or time spent on our hobbies.

And I think we need to make a distinction.

I think rest should be un-de-focusable. It should be a non-negotiable. Because while all of the other things will certainly help you recharge your mental and emotional battery, rest is what enables you to keep going in a more sustainable way.

Isn’t it ironic, how many of us cast rest aside because we want to hustle, then at some point need to stop hustling because we haven’t rested enough?

And yes, that does happen to many of us. The number of entrepreneurs who have told me they are going through or have at least once gone through burnout is astounding.

How I Rest

I don’t want to be prescriptive – at all – but I know I’d like to know if someone who wrote an article on rest walks the talk, so here is, in broad lines, how I incorporate rest into my daily life. And I certainly can still improve on this.

Sleep
I need my 8 hours of sleep and I sacrifice what would normally be work time to get it. Other people might just go to bed early, but I love dancing and both my classes and practice moments happen later in the evening.

I also live in Portugal, a southern European country, and so many social activities here happen after 7 pm. Could I adapt my social life so that it ends early in the evening? Yes.

Would it mean missing out on a lot of things that bring me joy and opportunities to connect with my friends? Also yes.

Because dance and my social life are important to me, I choose to go to bed around midnight and get up between 8 and 10 am. I know I could get more done if I started working at 8 or 9 am, but that doesn’t mix with the social life I want to lead, and the rest I want to get, and so work has got to give.

NSDR/Yoga Nidra
I think a lot of entrepreneurs have learned about Non-Sleep Deep Rest through the Huberman Podcast, myself included. I try to do 10-30 minutes of Yoga Nidra a day and achieve that about 90% of the time.

This practice allows me to relax both my brain and my body and I almost always use Ally Boothroyd’s videos to guide me.

I find it most beneficial to do NSDR sometime during the afternoon and around 5 pm at the latest.

Brain breaks
Brain breaks for me are pure mental rest. It includes things like stepping away from my laptop to put away the dishes or to prepare a meal. It does not include things like doing a workout during which I need to count reps and stay focused on my form.

Brain breaks allow me to let my mind wander and process.

Lying in the park
Like NSDR, lying down in the park is a combination of mental and physical rest with the added benefit that I can look up at the trees, plant my feet in the grass, and feel both more grounded and connected to nature even if I’m in a park in the middle of the city.

Sofa time
Sofa time is something I’m still getting better at. I’ve noticed that when I lie down on the sofa, it’s often when I’ve gone into a bit of a freeze state and also start scrolling my phone to zone out.

But sofa time is also when I listen to music or when I shut out the world to just be without any stimulation. Sofa time for me often follows social activities outside of the house.

Alone time
Alone time can be anything that doesn’t include other people. Makes sense, right?

Note how I didn’t add things like dance – my big passion – or spending time with friends among my ways of resting. Those things help me recharge, but I don’t consider them resting.

Re-learning How to Rest

Many of us have forgotten how to rest. We don’t remember that as kids, we used to lie in the garden staring up at the sky. That we would let ourselves drop down on the floor to regulate and rest. That we would refuse to do anything when we were too tired to carry on.

Cultural norms, education, societal expectations, and the hyper-focus on productivity in entrepreneurial circles have blocked our natural instincts to rest.

It’s time to set them free again.

And it’s going to be hard.

There is no framework. No general step-by-step plan to rest in the most efficient way. You’ll need to learn to recognize what drains you, what energizes you, how much time off you need, when you need that time off, and most importantly, you need to learn to create space in your days so that when (not if) a moment arises when you really need to take a break, you can.

I know what you’re thinking: if I leave space to rest when I need it, surely I can also use that space to be productive when I don’t need to rest.

You need to rest, trust me.

And this too is hard.

So many times I’ve been in a good flow with something and when the time was there to take a break, I thought “Let me just finish this one thing.” and then a little later, I felt my body tensing up, my breathing getting more shallow, my heart beat a little faster.

Look at it as drinking enough water: once you get thirsty, it’s already too late.

Rest, a Way of Being

While many goal-setting frameworks mention health as one of the areas in life we can set goals for, I have yet to come across a model that emphasizes the importance of rest as a break from all the doing and achieving.

For many of us go-getters and optimizers, rest has become another thing on our to-do list. Something we want to put on our calendars as a neatly defined time block.

I challenge you to look at rest as a way on non-doing. As giving time off to whatever part of you needs a break, needs peace, needs space.

I challenge you to accept that while you may be able to learn when you most likely will need rest and plan accordingly, rest is very similar to hunger. What you eat throughout the day and when will affect when you go hungry again, and how you feel during the periods that you’re not eating.

Lastly, I challenge you to make a list of ways in which you rest, and ways in which you recharge. How often are you doing these things? How does it feel looking at these lists?

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