4 Ways to Prioritize Rest

The importance of rest cannot be underestimated. Having had an incredibly busy fall and early winter, I’ve felt the need to rest and recuperate since the new year. In a society that’s constantly on the go, rest is not something that’s prioritized. We’re taught to ignore the signs from our bodies telling us to slow down. We’re expected to push through our tiredness with caffeine and other stimulants, eventually leading to burnout. It’s almost a point of pride to be completely burned out because it signals we’ve work hard and are productive. However, making rest a priority is what we desperately need to heal anxiety.

Last summer and fall I expanded my garden, planted 100 trees on my property, renovated my kitchen, adopted a rescue puppy, and finally finished my book which will be released this spring/summer. After the holidays, when things in my life started to slow down, my body screamed “REST!” The excitement and enthusiasm I normally feel about starting new projects and about day-to-day life just wasn’t there. I was exhausted.

As I’ve been healing my anxiety, I’ve learned how important it is to not push my body and instead to listen closely to it. This is why I slept more at night, napped, and slowed the heck down after the holidays rather than continuing to push myself. Yet, even though I prioritized rest, I was surprised that some anxiety came up.

Healing anxiety has taught me to stop running from my anxiety and instead face it so that I can hear what the anxiety is telling me. This time, anxiety was exposing an old and outdated fear I had about feeling tired and/or sick and because of this fear I wasn’t giving myself permission to feel tired. Even though I knew I was tired and was prioritizing my rest, not feeling like it was OK to be tired was making me feel anxious.

After some soul-searching, I realized that my fear of feeling tired started 21 years ago after my oldest child was born. With my husband’s military career and moving around every few years, I didn’t have a solid support system in place for when I was tired or sick and this worried me a lot. The fear of not being able to care for my son (and later all three of my kids) when I was tired or sick rooted itself in me.

For example, when my son was a few months old and I had a stomach virus and could barely stand up, I had to care for him on my own. Later when my son was a year old, I had a kidney infection and because of my husband’s job and lack of family support, I had to take care of him again on my own. Years later when my husband was deployed and I had all three of our young children to care for alone, I learned to push through exhaustion, but it left its mark. Even though feeling tired or under the weather are very normal feelings to experience, these feelings spur panic and anxiety in me. Uncovering my fear of feeling tired or sick allows me to uproot that fear and plant something new instead.

What’s now growing in place of this fear is a deepened understanding and appreciation of the importance of rest and how to prioritize it. Because we live in a society that encourages constantly pushing ourselves and always achieving, it’s imperative that we rewrite that script in order to heal anxiety.

Resting allows us to restore our minds and bodies. Physical rest will sometimes look different from mental rest and is needed when our bodies feel drained or weak. Physical rest can look like taking a nap, getting a massage, or curling up on the couch with our favorite pets – anything that helps to decompress and feel recharged. Mental rest is needed when our minds are overstimulated and need some quietude. Mental rest will be anything that helps to clear your head space, such as taking a walk, meditating or listening to music that allows your mind to rest while providing a means for it to process whatever was burdening it. Both mental and physical rest are important and at different times we may need one more than the other.

Ignoring our bodies’ and minds need for rest frays our already compromised nervous system and depletes our already weakened adrenal glands. We may not feel the effects right away, but, over time, our inability to rest and restore our minds, bodies, and souls can have long-term effects on our health, including our mental health. I’ve learned that if I ignore my body’s signals for rest in the moment, I take much longer to recuperate in the future than if I had carved out some time to rest when I initially needed it.

Sometimes our inner belief of “I’m not enough” makes it difficult to fully embrace rest. Our inner critic convinces us that we’re not productive enough, that we’re wasting time, or we’re lazy. We need to address our egos and know we’re enough so that we can rest without mentally berating ourselves when we do it.

Learning to honor our need for rest and giving ourselves permission to be tired can improve the quality of life, allowing us to move through our days fresh and restored. It’s vital that we prioritize rest and ensure that we block out time daily for restoration for our mental well-being and overall health. Below are four ways I’ve learned to prioritize rest.

(1)   Check-in with my body.

Every day, multiple times a day, I observe how my body feels. Doing this helps me to sync up with my body and really listen to what it needs so that I’m not overriding my rest signals. I ask myself questions such as: “Do I feel tired, energetic, or somewhere in between?” Based on the answer, I know how much extra rest I need.

(2)   Take breaks throughout my day.

This is not always possible but if I can, taking breaks throughout my day is a great way to recharge. I find that taking a break is especially helpful when I’m moving from one task or activity to another. Taking a break to drink a cup of tea, read something for fun, step outside to get some fresh air, or even just doing some easy stretches really helps me to shift gears before I begin something new or different. It also ensures that I’m preserving my energy so that I’m not completely exhausted by the end of the day.

(3)   Get cozy.

The Danish and Norwegian word for this is hygge which means “comfortable conviviality” or coziness. Hygge is a lifestyle and something I’ve implemented in my own life and home. Feeling cozy is very restorative. I make a fire in the fireplace, read a good book with a cup of herbal tea, spend some time laying in a hammock, or take a relaxing bath. Whatever allows me to rest, relax, and feel cozy.

(4)   Take naps.

Some people seem to love naps and other can’t stand them. Medical research shows that short naps of less than an hour, ideally between 20 to 40 minutes are ideal. The biggest complaint I’ve heard about naps is that people feel out of it after a long nap and don’t feel as productive. But I think it’s OK to not be super productive all of the time, especially when we’re exhausted. Since naps don’t interfere with my sleep at night, I embrace them when I feel like I need them.

Rest is imperative for people who have anxiety, giving our overtaxed nervous systems a chance to heal and repair. Rest helps to slow the production of adrenaline that’s present when we have anxiety. My blog Anxiety and the Adrenaline Cycle goes into more depth about this.

Now that I’m healing anxiety (and my kids are older), I’m learning how to rewrite the “I’m not allowed to feel tired or sick” script to “It’s OK for me to feel tired or sick.” I’m learning that I don’t have to push through anymore and that I can lay down and rest.

This year I’ve created a vision board with how I want to feel instead of goals, with “rested” being in the center of it. I still have goals I want to accomplish this year - things I want to do, projects I want to complete, but since I don’t want to feel completely drained while working towards my goals, I’m choosing to give rest equal footing alongside my goals.