Do You Know the Seven Types of Rest?
When we’re tired, we usually focus on the most obvious choice – getting more sleep. However, what if you are getting enough sleep and still feel exhausted? The chances are that you’re missing something or, possibly, six somethings.
Suppose you feel worn down, so you work to remedy your exhaustion by improving your sleep hygiene and ensuring you get a solid seven to nine hours a night. But instead of fixing the problem, you end up just as burned out as before.
In Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith’s book Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity, she discusses the need for seven different types of rest to feel renewed and energized. Here, we look at the kinds of rest your body needs and how to replenish yourself.
Physical Rest
Physical rest is our go-to when we’re tired, but it’s not always as simple as taking a nap. Instead, physical rest can take a passive or active form.
Passive physical rest is achieved through napping and sleeping, but even those acts aren’t as easy as they seem. For many, falling and staying asleep is challenging. Thankfully, Quality of Life’s Melatonin-SR™ helps.
Melatonin-SR™ uses QOL’s patent-pending MicroActive® Melatonin, which provides an initial 40% release of melatonin, so you can fall asleep, followed by a gradual 60% release so that you can stay asleep.*
Unlike most melatonin supplements that are metabolized quickly and leave the system within four hours, Melatonin-SR™ has a two-stage release that allows for seven hours of uninterrupted, quality sleep.*
Melatonin-SR™’s distinct formula supplements the hormone melatonin that prepares the body for sleep, so you can improve your sleep with less nighttime wakefulness, fewer mornings that start too early, and less time needed to fall asleep.*
Once you conquer passive physical rest, you can shift your focus to active physical rest, which includes breathing exercises, activities like stretching or yoga, hot baths, and massages.
Signs that you need physical rest include lack of energy, frequent muscle pain and soreness, and reliance on caffeine and energy drinks to keep you going.
Mental Rest
Mental rest or mental fatigue can build up from negative self-talk, anxiety, overthinking, becoming stuck in the past, and judging yourself and others. Signs that your body’s craving mental rest include increased irritability or mental fog, feeling overwhelmed, and decreased tolerance for minor frustrations.
You can supply yourself with mental rest by improving your time management skills, meditating, and taking time to clear your brain with exercises like writing down intrusive thoughts before they take over.
Another way to support your mental rest is with Quality of Life’s PureBalance™ Serotonin. Supplying the body with the raw materials necessary to produce the neurotransmitter serotonin, PureBalance™ Serotonin helps promote a positive outlook, reduce stress, and support healthy sleep.*
Using PureBalance™ Serotonin can help you balance your serotonin and cortisol levels so that you’re not constantly battling your hormones to overcome mental fatigue.*
Emotional Rest
Emotional rest looks at where your emotional energy goes. Did the news make you anxious? Did you get angry at a co-worker or neighbor? Are you taking on the weight of the world?
Those experiencing a deficit in their emotional rest often find themselves reliving and rehashing small mistakes, experiencing excessive worry, anxiety, self-doubt, or over-apologizing.
To target and resolve your emotional rest deficit, try becoming more mindful of your environment and the emotions of those around you. The feelings are contagious when you surround yourself with negative emotional energy, like people who constantly criticize and complain.
Managing emotional rest requires identifying those that drain you emotionally and those that restore your positive emotions. Once you establish that a person or situation is emotionally taxing, limit your time exposed to the negativity.
You can also limit your social media exposure, as scrolling often leads to draining comparisons that leave us feeling less than. Instead, shift your focus to restoring people and experiences, like spending time with your pets or those with a positive, uplifting outlook.
Spiritual Rest
Whether your spirituality lies in organized religion, spending time in nature, or finding a sense of community, when we feel depleted spiritually, we need to shift our focus to ways that restore our purpose.
Depending on your spirituality, spiritual rest can come with prayer, a long walk in the woods, or becoming more involved in your community. Finding connection and purpose is essential for spiritual fulfillment.
Social Rest
You can experience a deficit in your social rest when you engage in too much or too little social interaction for your needs. Another trigger of a social rest imbalance is spending too much time engaging in relationships that drain us and not enough in those that restore us.
If you feel alone, detached, struggle to maintain close relationships, or are drawn to toxic relationships, you could be experiencing a lack of social rest.
Social needs vary significantly from person to person, so pay attention to whether social interactions energize or exhaust you. Then, dig deeper and find which social interactions are more stimulating. You can reestablish a balance in your social dynamics by identifying your social needs.
Sensory Rest
The constant stimuli present in today’s world can lead anyone to experience a sensory overload. Loud noises, disruptive smells, increased screen time, and crowds can all lead to feeling overwhelmed with the world’s chaos.
To find sensory rest, try to close out the stimuli. For example, relax in a quiet room, read a physical book or magazine, take a bath, or spend time in your garden. Close out the constant barrage from the outside world to let your mind and senses slow down.
Creative Rest
When you feel completely tapped out of interesting, original ideas, you’re probably drained creatively and need to reset. However, you don’t need to be a writer experiencing writer’s block to feel uninspired. Many seemingly uncreative jobs and tasks require us to innovate or develop new ideas and solutions.
Restoring your creativity requires taking a break from the need to come up with something new and allowing yourself to find unique inspiration without a set intention.
Visiting other people’s creative endeavors, spending time in nature, and renewing your environment can all help to start your creative juices flowing again.
Prioritize Your Sacred Rest
According to Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, when you evaluate and address the areas where you’re feeling burned out, you can discover renewed energy and inspiration.
Quality of Life’s products that support quality sleep, stress reduction, and calm, Melatonin-SR™ and PureBalance™ Serotonin, can give you a head start in the quest for meaningful, sacred rest.*
