Are You Always Exhausted? Here Are 7 Types of Rest Everyone Needs to Feel Their Best

Alright, here’s the situation. You’ve just come home from a 12-hour work day. It’s been long and exhausting. All you want to do is shower and go to bed. And just as you’re about to, a friend calls you in tears. You want to help her but it would be a miracle if you even string a sentence together. Nevertheless, you hear her out and then finally fall into your bed and blanket. However, despite your exhaustion sleep alludes you. You try to calm your mind (count sheep) and eventually fall asleep. Now, the usual assumption would be that you’ll wake up the next day feeling rested and fresh, right? That doesn’t happen. So you sleep some more and spend the day binge-watching Netflix feeling burnt out and zombie-ish.

What you don’t realise in all this is that sleep and rest are very, very separate things. Just because you sleep and spend the day lying around, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re resting. In fact, just as Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith explains as part of TED’s “How to Be a Better Human” series and in her book Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Renew Your Sanity, there are seven different types of rest that everyone needs to feel their optimum best. We need some combination of physical, mental, social, sensory, creative, emotional and spiritual rest to come out of that constant exhaustion we feel.

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Read on to find out what each of those means and how you can customize them to suit your needs. 

Physical Rest

I think it’s a safe bet that every adult knows what physical exhaustion feels like. Sluggish movements and brain fog. The solution is rather obvious, isn’t it? Catch up on your zzzzz’s.

And while it’s critical to get a good night’s sleep, that would only give you passive physical rest. Along with 8-10 hours of undisturbed slumber, you also need to focus on toning down your rigorous routine. For instance, if you’ve worked out for 5 days in a week, don’t go to the gym on the 6th day and partake in your trainer’s merciless HIIT workout. Take some time off and give your body a chance to catch its breath. Do some stretches and use a foam roller to ease up your muscles.

Only if you can achieve a combination of the two components will you be well physically rested. Let us also add that it’s easier said than done. But that doesn’t make it impossible, does it?

Mental Rest

Have you ever had one of those days where you’re sitting at work and just blankly staring at the dull grey walls in your office? You just can’t seem to focus. Your eyes feel heavy even though you’ve got your 7 hours of sleep and even though you’ve worked your way through 5 cups of coffee you can’t shake this blah feeling. Chances are you need some mental rest. Your body needs a minute to play catch up, why should your mind be treated any different?

To give yourself a mental break, make sure you turn off your brain for a few minutes every day. If you don’t, you’ll eventually walk right into the burnout pit. Take a small break every few hours. Even if it means taking a small walk or incorporating some mindful breathing exercises into your everyday routine. The key to being productive is not working like a horse with blinders on. It’s to slow down for a few minutes every day and give your mind a clean break.

Social Rest

Despite what the name might suggest, social rest does not mean locking yourself in your room away from everyone else. It simply means surrounding yourself with people whose energy lifts you instead of being around social vampires that leave you feeling heavy and drained.

The point to note is that some interactions we have, be it our boss or neighbour or best friend, takes chunks out of our social energy. This doesn’t make them bad or negative people. But it means that we need to find people who rejuvenate us and pour something back into our lives instead of just pulling from us. Energy-wise, of course. By focusing our time on the latter group of people, our social batteries will never go below red. 

Spiritual Rest

Do you ever feel like the work you’re doing has no meaning? Or that you’re just working pay-check to pay-check without it amounting to anything? This helpless feeling that seems like an existential crisis is spiritual unrest. Of course, this is just one example.

Regardless of your belief system (or lack thereof), to feel at peace you need to feel like you belong. Like you’re a part of something bigger than yourself. For the religious bunch, this can be achieved through prayers and faith. For everyone else, a spiritual reboot means you need to strive to find a deeper meaning. Focus on your passion or find a way to contribute to your community—may be through charity and volunteer work. And maybe try your hand at yoga or meditation.

Sensory Rest

Take a glance around the room you’re in, will you? Are there any harsh lights or funky smells? Can you hear the blaring honks of cars stuck in traffic in the background? How loud is the music? Is your phone just buzzing with notifications? Any of these everyday situations have the power to push our senses into overdrive. Whether or not you’re consciously aware of the sensory input, your subconscious is constantly processing information. Especially since most of us Netflix, doom scroll and do our chores simultaneously. We are over-stimulated.

Your senses need rest just as your body or mind. Close your eyes every few hours, focus on your breathing and phase all noises, aromas and sights out. Another recommended trick is to keep all screens away at least an hour or two before you go to bed every night. Again, it’s not easy but your senses aren’t supercomputers.

Emotional Rest

By emotional rest, we don’t only mean cutting off that ex that’s been bread-crumbing you all this time. We’re also talking about unloading all the emotional baggage we don’t share with anyone fearing judgement or rejection.

It helps to talk to someone and offload. Sometimes keeping things to yourself might seem like the best idea but it rarely is. If you stuff your inner bottle too much and seal it up chances are one of these days it will burst and lead you down an emotional rabbit hole. The way to feel lighter is to share your emotional burdens. A better option is finding a therapist who will give you advice, exercise and help you identify your emotional triggers that otherwise hinder your mental health.

Creative Rest

Have you ever had that moment when you’re in a meeting and your colleagues are spewing creative ideas one after the other but you can’t come up with a single one? This doesn’t make you incompetent. It just means that you’re saturated and need some new inspiration. A creative rebooting, if you will. It’s not easy to think outside the box when the box has disintegrated due to overuse.

Allow yourself some downtime. Take a vacation and immerse yourself in nature. Give yourself the space to experience beauty in different forms. If you can’t take a vacation, just take a few days off to nourish your soul some other way. Read, listen to music, and experience a new part of your city. How can you expect yourself to be at the top of your creativity game when you’re in a boring rut? Break out.