The 7 types of rest we all need | Mindfulness

The 7 Types of Rest

Tired? Exhausted? need sleep and yet still have the same feeling?

All of us at one point have experienced this feeling that you have slept enough, yet when you wake up you have this ongoing lack of energy, burnout, or feeling of exhaustion. Here's the thing: most of us think sleep and rest are the same. But you know what, it's not. It is generally confused by many. Rest is to cease activity and relax to regain strength. Rest should equal restoration.

We all need this type of rest to feel fully alive and ourselves, and the fact is that the antidote to exhaustion isn’t just, say, sleeping enough or taking a vacation—it’s identifying the types of rest you need most desperately and adopting small daily strategies to reload them.

People feel burned out because they have a poor work-life balance. "Work-life balance" is generally misnamed because nobody wants work on one side and life on the other, especially if you’re succeeding in one area, you’re failing in the other. All we need is work-life integration and harmony. We want them to modulate so that both can succeed and thrive.

The rest are of several different types:physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, social, sensory, and creative. Each type of rest has its own characteristics that will be present if you have a deficit.

Physical Rest
Passive Physical rest occurs when you sleep or nap when your body requires rest. Active Physical Rest is when you relax your body by walking at a comfortable pace, using massage therapy, stretching, etc.

Spiritual Rest
Spiritual rest is when you do some prayer, meditation, or sit in some quiet place. From this, you will likely be encouraged to share your experience with others who believe as you do. This will bring peace and passion within you and will definitely relax you from within.

Mental Rest
Give yourself mental rest by taking short breaks from work, short walks, journaling, deep breathing, short meditations, and lastly, letting go of perfection.

Emotional rest

Emotional rest refers to the experience when we feel like we can be real and authentic in sharing our feelings with a person or group.
Try journaling or going to a place where you don't know anyone, like a gym, temple, etc.

Sensory Rest
Give your senses some rest by sitting in a calm spot and listening to calm music. Close your eyes and take a quick break. Relax yourself.

Creative Rest
Creative rest is when we allow ourselves to appreciate beauty in any form, be it natural beauty like the sea, mountains, trees, etc., or created beauty like art, dance, music, etc. Creativity is a type of innovation. You are in deceit when you have a hard time being innovative. Just go for a hike or visit an art gallery.

Social Rest
It can be you spending time with your favourite person or you spending time alone. To experience more social rest, surround yourself with positive and supportive people.

Where to Start?

Identify your deficit by going through all types and asking simple questions. Then put the greatest deficit first and pick one or two from your top list and start developing small strategies to implement regularly. Go through all seven one by one to restore yourself.

You need to understand the restoration process will take time and that it is something you can do at almost any time without a lot of limitations. You don’t have to take a month-long sabbatical or some kind of big carved-out period of time. You need a strategy of small things you can do immediately to start feeling better. I’d rather suggest doing small amounts of restoration throughout your week, because then at least you’re storing something and not letting yourself go all the way to burnout. I am no professional but come with experience.