7 TYPES OF REST WE ALL NEED
Excerpts from The Sunday Paper
How to recharge? Sleep is only one type of rest we need to restore ourselves. According to Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, we need 7 different kinds of recess to replenish ourselves for optimal health.
PHYSICAL
There’s passive physical rest, like sleeping and napping. And then, active physical rest, which is restorative, like yoga, stretching, massage therapy, and leisure walks.
MENTAL
For those who typically get into bed at night and their brains won’t shut off. Mental rest can include nightly brain dumps or mind dumps where you write down whatever thoughts are ruminating through your headspace.
SPIRITUAL
For those who have a faith-based spiritual belief, spiritual rest can include meditation and prayer. Spiritual rest can also include feeling a sense of belonging—-an inner-connectedness of relationship with others.
EMOTIONAL
Emotional rest is being fully vulnerable or ‘getting real’ with another person. All of us need someone in our lives with whom we can just say how it is. That person can be a counselor, trusted friend, pastor—-who it is is up to you.
SOCIAL
There are people in our lives with whom the nature of our relationship is that we are always the ones giving and they are the ones receiving. And then there are other relationships that pour back into us, that don’t require anything from us, and that don’t have any agenda when we come around. There is a need for those life-giving relationships with the people who love on you and fill you up.
SENSORY
Sensory rest is downgrading the sensory input in our lives. With social media and all of the gadgets that we use all day, we have a lot of sensory input as a culture. We need to be mindful of that and how it affects us. We need times when we are allowing ourselves to appreciate silence.
CREATIVE
Creative rest is when we allow beauty, whether it’s natural (beach, mountains, park) or man-made (museum, symphony, theatre) into our lives. That sense of awe and wonder. Having fresh flowers in your home is a small way of getting creative rest throughout the day.
People who are high achievers have the mindset that rest is not necessary because they think they can get more done if they don’t rest. But in truth, the most productive people—people who produce at the highest mental, physical, creative, emotional level of capacity—rest.
You have to be courageous. It’s a rebellious act to say, ‘you know what? For me to do what I need to do and to be where I need to be, I need to take a day to sit and stare at grass.’ It takes courage to do that because that is not what most of the world is doing.