Are You Getting Seven Kinds of Rest?

In Your Oxy­gen Mask First, I talk about Resilience Rit­u­als (Chap­ter 3 Dou­ble Your Per­son­al Resilience) that keep you strong and at your best, at work and in life.

Sleep and rest are such an impor­tant part of main­tain­ing resilience, so I was intrigued by some recent research by Dr. Saun­dra Dal­ton-Smith. In her book Sacred Rest: Recov­er Your Life, Renew Your Ener­gy, Restore Your San­i­ty, expands the def­i­n­i­tion of rest into sev­en types and talks about how they are absolute­ly crit­i­cal to enable you to meet the demands and stress­es of work and life — for your ener­gy, cre­ativ­i­ty and happiness.

Rest deserves respect.

Here are the sev­en kinds she talks about:

1. Phys­i­cal Rest

This comes in two forms:

• Pas­sive: Sleep­ing 7+ hours every night and tak­ing pow­er naps
• Active: Stretch­ing, mas­sage, using an ergonom­ic chair and desk.

1. Men­tal Rest

Give your brain a break from con­stant­ly fig­ur­ing things out:

• Make lists – things to do and ref­er­ences for pack­ing, gro­ceries, etc.
• Cre­ate shut­down rit­u­als to sep­a­rate work and life

1. Social Rest

Be selec­tive with your social time. Spend more with peo­ple who give you ener­gy, and less with peo­ple who steal it.

And if you’re an intro­vert, make sure to block out alone-time.

1. Spir­i­tu­al Rest

Be part of some­thing big­ger than your­self. Vol­un­teer or donate to a char­i­ty, work in a pur­pose-dri­ven job, or par­tic­i­pate in faith-based activ­i­ties (aligned with your belief system).

1. Sen­so­ry Rest

Give your over-stim­u­lat­ed brain a break:

• Take a Social Media break
• Turn off sound and visu­al alerts/​notifications
• Lim­it video meetings
• Cre­ate a relax­ing evening ambiance – low lights, sooth­ing music, can­dles, etc.

1. Emo­tion­al Rest

Replen­ish your­self from the emo­tion­al toll when you when you feel you can’t be authen­tic – spend time with friends you can be authen­tic with, to laugh and have fun, or being still. You may also want to talk to a ther­a­pist if you feel overwhelmed.

1. Cre­ative Rest

Appre­ci­ate and par­tic­i­pate in beau­ty in any form:

• Go for a walk, take in a sunset
• Vis­it a muse­um, gallery, art festival
• Engage with inspir­ing books, music or films. 

I am already aware of my need for phys­i­cal, social and spir­i­tu­al rest, but I didn’t con­sid­er sen­so­ry rest. I want to be pro­duc­tive, even in my down­time, so there’s still a lot going on – like when I dri­ve on a high­way, I make calls or lis­ten to audio books. To get that sen­so­ry rest, I could just enjoy the dri­ve and stay away from the phone and books.

This is not about giv­ing your­self a whole bunch of extra things to do. Think of it as doing some­thing kind for your­self – doing just one thing, can make a huge dif­fer­ence to your resilience.

The Chal­lenge

• What type of rest would you ben­e­fit most from and how can you get it?

Addi­tion­al Blogs

The Gift of Well­be­ing and Resilience

What Makes You Happy?

Tak­ing a Men­tal Health Break

Lawrence & Co’s work focus­es on sus­tain­able and enhanced growth for you and your busi­ness. Our diverse and expe­ri­enced group of advi­sors can help your lead­ers and exec­u­tive teams stay com­pet­i­tive through the use of var­i­ous learn­ing tools includ­ing work­shops, webi­na­rs, exec­u­tive retreats, or one-to-one coaching.

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