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As a society, we struggle to prioritize rest. Our lives have become so busy and stressful that most of us cannot recall feeling energized and rested outside our vacation days. Even more so in Academia, where we work in a fast-paced, hyper-competitive, high-pressure work environment. We often have to cope with tight deadlines, failed experiments, uncertain career prospects, manuscripts and grant proposal rejections, imposter syndrome, pressure from supervisors… Our work might end up being an ever-growing-never-ending to-do list. All of this has bred anxiety, depression, and burnouts and fueled the present mental health crisis amongst academics. This culminates in an endless cycle of overworking, intense tiredness, consequent unproductivity, and guilt, which leads to chronically tired and burned-out researchers.
In this productivity and results-driven work environment, resting is often seen as laziness, weakness, lack of dedication, or simply staying behind, rather than an essential component for our well-being, health, and consequently productivity. Most of us face rest as a reward that we only deserve after a long and exhausting day at work. As a result, most researchers often feel tired and drained. And how many of us have tried to fix it by an 8-hours-plus night of sleep only to wake up still feeling exhausted? This indicates that the lack of sleep is not the only explanation for our tiredness.
In fact, sleep and rest are not the same things. According to the Cambridge dictionary, the definition of rest is: “to (cause someone or something) stop doing a particular activity or stop being active for a period of time in order to relax and get back your strength.” Rest encompasses restoration, refreshment, recharging, and relaxing. According to Dr. Dalton-Smith’s research, we need 7 different types of rest, and we are not getting them. For different types of tiredness, there are different types of rest.
1. Physical rest
Sometimes we feel physically tired, low on energy, with muscle pains and aches, and sleep-deprived. To counteract it, we need physical rest, which can be an active rest by sleeping or taking a nap, or passive by doing restorative or relaxing practices such as yoga, stretches, massages, or simply taking a hot bath.
2. Mental rest
All of us have felt mentally tired, unable to concentrate, trying to read the same sentence 10 times and still not retaining information, with memory lapses and ruminating thoughts, which we ineffectively try to counteract with unhealthy amounts of coffee. For this, we need mental rest, which includes short and frequent breaks during the day and activities that do not require us to think, such as meditation, watching a series or movie, doing sports, a walk outside, playing with our pets, listening to our favorite music…
3. Social rest
Sometimes we need social rest. After long hours of meetings, networking, social events, and coffee breaks, we might need some time alone or surround ourselves with people we are comfortable with. In this case, we should be mindful and invest in interactions with people who recharge us and limit those who drain us.
4. Creative rest
Other times we might feel stuck, not able to write or be creative in the search for new ideas and projects. For this, we need creative rest. It helps if we surround ourselves with things that inspire us, such as music, art, books, walks in nature, or get inspiration in the work of others.
5. Emotional rest
Often times we feel overwhelmed, pressured, and with an emotional overload. In this case, we need emotional rest. We can get it by talking with someone willing to listen and sharing how we feel or by simply writing it down. It also helps to set some time for ourselves and cut back on people-pleasing.
6. Sensory rest
In this overstimulating world, we very frequently suffer from sensory input overload. Several hours of screen time, bright lights, background noise, constant notifications and reminders, successive meetings, and multitasking are part of a typical day. In this case, we require sensory rest. It helps to turn off all electronic devices or at least notifications, go somewhere quiet or just close our eyes for a few minutes.
7. Spiritual rest
Finally, in broader terms, we might feel disconnected not only from ourselves but from other people and the world around us. In this case, we might need spiritual rest, which can involve religious or non-religious introspective practices, meditation, journaling, volunteering, helping others, or finding purpose and meaning in what we are doing.
To sum up, first, we need to reframe our concept of rest and start seeing it not as a reward but as an essential part of our lives. We also need to detach our value from our productivity level. Then we should become aware of the different types of rest, attune to our needs in different moments and prioritize resting. For instance, scheduling resting times and defining clear limits and boundaries of our time will help us fine-tune our work-life balance. Counterintuitively by prioritizing our rest and well-being, we become more productive, present, creative, motivated, and focused.
Which type of rest do you need today?
References
Dalton-Smith, S. (2018) Sacred Rest: Recover your life, renew your energy, restore your sanity. Faith Words, Ne
