Good Rest is a Balanced Diet

We’re pretty clear on the kinds of foods we need to fuel our bodies. Carbs alone are not enough, we’ll get irritable once the initial energy boost wears off. Protein will give us lasting energy, but if we forget about fruits and vegetables, we’re in trouble.

Like food, rest fuels our bodies. Yet we’re bad at distinguishing between different types of rest and learning where we’re rest-deficient. Just as we learn to watch out for when our diet has been low on protein for a few days, we also need to know when we’re deficient in certain types of rest, beyond sleep.

Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith explains that many of us are getting too much of the wrong types of rest, and it’s not replenishing our energy. According to her research, there are seven distinct types of rest and we need a little of each. Whilst most of us can name seven types of foods our bodies need to function well, seven types of rest might be beyond us — and it’s holding us back.

More Than a Good Night’s Sleep

Sleep is a form of physical rest — essential to our survival, but only the tip of the iceberg. Other forms of physical rest such as stretching are also important, restoring our circulation and flexibility, from practising yoga to getting a massage.

Unsurprisingly, a daily yoga session is not a silver bullet: sleeping and stretching covers the physical side of rest, but neglects the mind. Cramming in an early morning yoga session before a packed work day and leaving little time to unwind before bed means our minds don’t get any rest, even when we’re sleeping.

Behavioural sleep specialist Dr Jane Wu recommends building some “being” time into your day, especially before bed. During this time there is no “doing”, which means slowing down and avoiding goal-oriented activities. Where “being” is restorative, anything you need to “get done” is the very opposite of rest.

Most importantly, moments of “being” are only restorative if we can “be ourselves” in those moments. Dr. Dalton-Smith explains that time spent “being” around others who drain our energy or make us feel we need to behave differently in order to fit in rapidly drain our emotional and social rest batteries, and we need alone time, time catering to our own needs or time with supportive friends and family in order to replenish it.

Another small shift that makes the rest we reap in these moments infinitely more impactful is to make sure we are in calm surroundings, void of busy background noise, bright lights and large screens. This is important sensory rest, and we need it to keep ourselves calm. 

In a world where peaceful silence is increasingly a luxury — and not an everyday luxury, Dr Dalton-Smith offers a simple but important tip: close your eyes for a minute. No matter your surroundings, this can start to ground you and help calm you down.

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Rest doesn’t always look familiar

So far we’ve covered the importance of sleeping, stretching, being still, being ourselves and slowing down, as well as surrounding ourselves with people who bring out the best in us and keep us calm. It all sounds predictably restful, yet Dr Dalton-Smith’s other recommended forms of rest might not be the first to spring to mind.

Actively engaging in creative activities is an important and often neglected source of rest, “reawakening the awe and wonder inside each of us”, Dr Dalton-Smith explains. Whether it’s admiring nature or making your own art (anything from making music to painting and writing) unleashing your creative energy generates more creative ideas — debunking the myth that we can “use up” our creativity.

It’s especially important for innovators and anyone who generates ideas in their job: expecting to show up with bucketloads of creative energy after a good night’s sleep is unrealistic if we have not taken the time to replenish our creativity stocks by actively engaging in other creative pursuits.

Apart from creative rest, Dr Dalton-Smith explains that we also all need forms of spiritual rest. This can be fulfilled through activities more commonly associated with rest, such as prayer and meditation, but it might also be achieved by finding and connecting with a community of like-minded people, or doing an activity that feeds our sense of purpose.

Whatever it is, it needs to feed our sense of fulfilment, and give us a feeling of being part of something larger than ourselves.

What’s sapping your energy?

Reflecting on all the different types of rest our bodies need can help us discover where we’re running low. Where insomniacs know the source of their tiredness, someone constantly battling to fit in at the expense of being themselves may not realise how much it’s draining their energy.

To discover where you’re not getting enough rest, ask yourself: where do I feel the tiredness? In my mind or in my body? If it’s in your body, try stretching and winding down before bed, or directly treating sleep challenges.

If it’s in your mind, you’ve got some more digging to do. What is leaving you feeling so drained?

If you feel most drained after time around other people, it could be a social or emotional rest deficit. Social rest is hard to come by if you’re surrounding yourself with people who (often unintentionally) drain your energy or in environments where you struggle to be your authentic self. Emotional rest is in short supply when we feel compelled to please everyone around us, and put our own needs last.

If this doesn’t sound like the source of your tiredness, it might be because your daily schedule is overloading your mind. Perhaps you’re always on the go and forgetting to take mental breaks, or you’re constantly faced with environments full of bright lights and noise. Dr. Dalton-Smith explains that these types of mental and sensory fatigue require moments of stillness and quiet throughout the day.

Maybe none of these resonate and instead you’re feeling uninspired or unfulfilled? In this instance, you may be lacking connection to something bigger or hungry for ways to get creative so you can reignite that creative spark at work. You might go out and seek more human connection or spend time in nature.

Let’s start to treat rest with the same nuance and respect as we treat our diet. When we see an activity we associate with “rest” it’s up to us to decode its nutritional values: is it high in physical rest, but low in social rest? How can we make sure our bodies are consuming a balanced rest diet?

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