59· Permission To Pause
Podcast show notes
Rest isn’t a luxury, it’s essential, and in this episode, I’m exploring why it’s so hard to prioritise but so necessary to function.
I share the seven types of rest, from physical and mental to creative and emotional, and why knowing what you really need is a game changer.
It’s about moving beyond burnout, reframing rest as an investment, and learning how small, intentional steps can completely recharge you.
Here are the highlights
(00:40) Essence of Rest
(01:27) Active vs. Passive Rest
(04:41) Reframing Rest as an Investment
(07:48) Creative and Emotional Rest
(12:21) Practical Ways to Recharge
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Ruth
Welcome to Frustrated and Exhausted, the podcast for women in leadership, where I help you fulfill your ambitions without sacrificing your sanity or your resilience.
Hello everybody and welcome again to Frustrated and Exhausted. I'm really glad that you're here with me today. So in a culture that really glorifies being busy and being constantly on the go and on the hamster wheel, a rest can really feel like a luxury, but what if it's the key to everything that we are actually striving for, that we are working towards? I often struggle to prioritize rest. It's been true of me my whole adult life I think and you know as I've kind of talked about a bit on other podcast episodes, I kind of came a cropper as a result. That sort of go, go, go, go, go, you know working all the hours, socialising loads, feeling like I could never stop actually led to sort of burnout and illness for me and I have had to learn to prioritise rest and that can be a battle in itself for me, and especially when you've got so many demands on your time you know, I thought I had demands when I was younger when I ended up burned out, I've got even more demands on my time now, and it is still really hard to prioritise. But it really is essential and that's what we're going to explore a bit in this episode is sort of why it's essential, how we can identify what type of rest that we need, and I've spoken a bit before about the difference between active rest and passive rest and we'll kind of get into that in a little bit more detail this episode. And you know I'm going to offer as well some practical ways to try and recharge in your daily life.
So, why do we need to rest? Well, we know that sleep itself is essential for sort of our physical, mental and emotional well-being and we know that there's a difference as well between rest and idleness. So you know when we really rest we're doing it intentionally. It's restorative. It makes us feel better. We have more energy. You know that way where you wake up from asleep or and you feel kind of invigorated, you wake your bing, you're, you're, you're ready to go and other times you really, really don't. Or you kind of just say right I'm going to take myself off to a movie today. I'm going to go and just actually have some time to look after myself, to watch something that I'm going to find stimulating and enjoyable. Or you can slob in front the TV watching whatever happens to be on and you know the difference there you can see between taking yourself off somewhere to do something that feels generous towards yourself versus urgh, it just happens to be what's on and it's not really feeding you in any way and making you feel better. So there's that difference between being restorative, well kind of you know when you're idle, when you're not really resting intentionally it can actually feel draining, even though you're not doing anything or not moving it can feel, still feel draining.
So we all know that there are loads of benefits to rest. We work better, we work smarter, the quality of our thinking is better. We feel better in ourselves you know, our mental health is better when we have proper, restorative rest. But as I kind of alluded to earlier, it can, we can feel guilty about doing that. We can feel guilty about putting our own needs first. We can feel guilty when we don't feel that we're always looking after everybody else, or potentially even feeling guilty about not always working towards something. I think especially in Western culture there is this real drive to feel like we've got to be working towards something, to being successful, or, especially as women, that we've got to be taking care of other people's needs when we're not working, working. So, we really need to think about how we reframe resting as a long term investment in ourselves and in our focus and in the quality of what we do. You know we're gonna have to find the energy sometimes when there's a crisis on to, to kind of go, go, go but we can't operate like that all the time and I talked a bit about that in an earlier episode around kind of toxic work cultures and, and how that really drains us when we're in crisis mode all the time because of lack of prioritisation or whatever. But when we, when we really prioritise rest, you know we need to think about it as an investment in ourselves and in what we do and how we do it and how well we do it. So it's that kind of long term gain really that we're, we're looking for.
There's an interesting book around rest by a lady called Dr. Sandra Dalton Smith and she kind of introduces the concept of seven different types of rest, and it's a really helpful way to think about what we need. You know if you can, if you can just think, even remember some of these seven, and check in with yourself every so often around what it is you actually need, what type of rest you actually need at this particular point in time, and I'm really hoping as this episode goes out we should be kind of round about Christmas time and kind of in the festive season and in that deep mid winter kind of point of the year where hopefully we're all able to get some sort of rest. Dr Dalton Smith talks about physical rest, you know we're talking about sleep, we're talking about relaxing our bodies you know, that might be through some sort of activity like yoga or pilates or something but we're talking about physical rest there.
She talks about mental rest, you know, doing things that clear your mind. For me that's always a good walk and being outdoors, I find really restorative in that way, but what gives you a mental rest? The other thing I really like is like a really trashy book, a proper trashy novel that requires no actual brain engagement but is sort of entertaining and light and you know for me again that's one of those things that I can just, I'm still doing something but it feels not necessarily nurturing in terms of knowledge but definitely entertaining and and it takes me away from from the day to day and the other things that I'm normally thinking about and gives my brain a rest in that way.
She also talks about sensory rest and this is something we probably think about a little bit less, but that's about kind of reducing overstimulation. So the obvious thing around that is stepping away from your phone, which again I find really difficult to do sometimes, but that overstimulation you know maybe it's being in places where it's really busy and your brain feels kind of overwhelmed by all this sensory inputs that it's experiencing. Maybe it's the constant pinging of your phone or your notifications on your emails or whatever it is, but it's, it's taking a break from all of that. Maybe it is picking up a good book and sitting somewhere quiet, but it's giving your, your brain and your body at rest from that constant interruption that goes on for all of us these days.
I love this next one. I don't do enough of it but she talks a lot about creative rest, and what she means by that is, is activities that inspire you. You know maybe it's sitting down and writing for a bit. Maybe it's making something. Maybe it's taking time to slow, time to cook something really amazing that you in, where you enjoy the process of creating whatever that thing is. Maybe you're into cake decorating, great at baking, terrible at cake decorating, but whatever it is, it's, it's that it's tapping into another part of you that isn't about the to-do list, that isn't about anything else other than just creating something for the sake of creating it and enjoying the process of doing that and tapping into that other side of your mind and your being.
She talks as well about emotional rest, you know sort of actually finding ways to process and release emotions. Again for me, walking is a great one for that. My mind sort of does work but it also sort of allows me to sort of think about things I wouldn't normally think about and recognise things going on in my body and my brain that I might not have in terms of how I feel about, about things because I don't always articulate that very well to myself. So actually finding ways to rest emotionally, to release pent up emotion. For some people that will be really active. For me it's walking. For some people it might be going to the gym. For other people it might just be sitting quietly and thinking, or we you know, if you're a bit of a crier like I can be watching something on the TV that sort of stimulates that and allows you to let out other emotion that is otherwise kind of pent up inside yourself. But whatever it is that works for you, you know really thinking about what you need to look after yourself emotionally.
And at this time, time of the year if you've had a really busy December, a social rest might be a good thing, or you've seen a lot of your family and that might not always be a good thing. You know, taking breaks from people who drain you. There are people who inspire you and lift you up and fill you full of that good energy and there are other people who just leave you feeling flat as a pancake, or you know you kind of get into conflict with in some way that that drains you in a different way. And again that could as much be in your personal life as it is in your work life, but really thinking about social rest and actually do you need some alone time or do you need time with those people who lift you and really kind of prioritising that?
And finally she talks about spiritual rest. You know that can mean a world of different things depending on your beliefs. You know whether it's religious, whether it's something slightly different, but it's really about finding deeper connection and meaning in your life so is the time that you spend, are you spending something doing something meaningful? You know that could be volunteering. It might not be going and sitting in church on a Sunday, it can mean lots of different things, what matters is that you do things in your life that do give you that sense of meaningfulness and connection and making sure again that is there for you.
So really just kind of taking it, you know all sorts of things might have bubbled up for you there, you might realise that actually one of those is completely missing for you. You know I do not spend enough time doing creative things anymore. I miss that. I used to be very musical, spend lots of time playing piano, singing all that sort of stuff and I don't do enough of it anymore, and that used to really give me a recharge and it's something I probably need to spend a bit more time prioritising. But really thinking about that, not only your physical kind of rest but your mental and spiritual and sensory and emotional rest, your creative rest, thinking about it from all of those different perspectives can help you to identify what it is that you need at that time.
So how do we actually find practical ways to recharge in the moment? Boundaries, always the boundaries. It's protecting time for yourself to rest in whatever way it is that you need to rest at that time but, but actually protecting time for it in your day, every day if you can so that you're continually topping yourself up. It's you know little moments of micro breaks I guess you could call them. You know little moments where you, you just take five minutes to do something different. It might be a movement break. It might be dancing in the corner somewhere. It might just be a quick walk or a quick bit of movement. It might be a five minute meditation. That's certainly something that I kind of do sort of here and there in the day when I can. It can also be about sort of decluttering. Now if you saw my desk as I'm recording this right now you would laugh your head off as I say this because I'm normally a bit of a clear desk person but I literally have piles around me at the moment, and that doesn't really help me to feel calm and clear and clear-headed. So really thinking about what's around you, whether it's your work environment, whether it's your home environment but you know, is your space set up for rest? Does it make you feel calm? Does it make you feel clear in your mind? I could probably use some help with that one for sure and really kind of scheduling your downtime, you know sort of I, I quite often if, if and when I can, I put little blocks in my diary and I colour code them differently, just so that I can literally see when I look at my, my calendar, different colours and I can see where there are little bits of rest plugged in. And when I'm really, really busy, I find that helpful. It kind of calms me even when I just see those spots in my day, to kind of go okay, I'm going to go for a quick walk there, or okay I'm going to do some exercise there, whatever it might be. And, yeah, stepping away from the technology and social media and your phone is a biggie really I think these days and trying to do that now and again, you know I, my daughter told me the other day, mummy, you need to listen to me properly, put your phone down. I thought oh good grief I'm getting told off now so that's, that's obviously not the right way around so that was a real kind of moment for me to kind of look at myself and think right okay I need to do something about this.
So, try some of this stuff. Try and experiment with us and you know if we're coming into a new year and if you're somebody who sees that as new year, new you, then you know take the opportunity to look at some of your habits and think about how you can create space for this active rest, not idleness, but guilt free, active rest that makes you feel good, and thinking about those seven different types of rest that can help you to identify what you actually need at the time. It's all really about just simple, intentional steps to, to make life sustainable and to make sure that you're doing things on a daily basis that help you to show up the way that you want to, for yourself and for everyone else around you.
I hope that's been really helpful. If you've got any comments, if you've got any great tips or techniques for resting that really work for you, send me a message, drop me a note on LinkedIn. I'd absolutely love to hear from you as always. Take care and I hope you're having a good rest.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Frustrated and Exhausted. Hit the follow button for future episodes. You can also follow me on Instagram at Resonate Leadership and LinkedIn at Ruth Alexandra Wood, I'd absolutely love to hear from you. Frustrated and Exhausted is brought to you by Resonate Leadership and the wonderful team at the Podcast Boutique. I'm your host Ruth Wood, take care and speak to you soon.
