Rest I mean. Why, what did you think I meant?

I don’t think many of us get enough rest. We charge around doing this and that and the other, and we somehow think that by doing all these things and never taking a moment for ourselves, we accrue virtue. What we really accrue is exhaustion, and exhaustion is no good to our health, physical or mental.

When I got diagnosed with my plantar fasciitis, one of the things I was supposed to do was to rest that foot. Well, that was clearly nonsensical – there was no way I could rest it: my job demands that I am on my feet for six hours at a time. I could do everything else recommended, but I couldn’t rest it. I just had to hope that it would get better anyway. Fortunately, it did, quite suddenly, so I can walk comfortably again. I’m sure, however, that it would have got better much quicker if I had been able to rest it.

Then there’s sleep. We know we operate best on eight to nine hours of sleep, but how many of us actually get nine hours sleep? It seems excessive, doesn’t it? Studies show that most people get seven hours at most. If we slept for longer, we would probably feel better.

But rest isn’t just sleep, rest can be other things too. We must remember that “rest” is an active verb. We are not doing nothing, we are resting. Here are some of the things that resting might be:

·       Listening to your body

·       Refusing to make plans

·       Prioritising your needs

·       Shortening your to do list (by actively choosing not to do some of the things on it)

·       Watching a TV programme or film that you love

·       Being kind to yourself

·       Taking a mental health day

·       Allowing yourself to recharge

·       Giving yourself what you need

Sometimes rest can look exhausting to an outsider. My husband and I recently took a holiday to the island of Malta. Malta has so much history, but it requires a lot of walking to see it all. We never did less than 15,000 steps a day and spent all our time looking at neolithic temples, medieval forts and WWII history, yet it was a restful time away from the common round of daily tasks. We were tired at the end of each day, but it was a good kind of tired. We slept well, and, because we were on holiday, we slept for the eight or nine recommended hours. We feel refreshed for that break.

Yet, there is also the wrong type of rest. Sometimes you can find yourself with nothing to do – or nothing that you want to do and you’re bored, bored, bored. Boredom is not rest, it’s destructive.

So, I will ask again – are you getting enough rest? And are you getting the right kind of rest? If you take more time to rest, your mental (and physical) health will thank you.

Mary

A Moodscope member