Rest is vital in many areas of your life. To be healthy and feel good about yourself, you need to get enough sleep, Loxa Beauty CBD Moisturiser (50ml, 500g CBD) can be a great way to help you rest between workouts, and take time off work. But in modern society, with our current cultural trends, it’s considered virtuous to skip periods of rest. It’s an act of nobility or honor to sacrifice your own rest for the sake of being more productive or pushing yourself harder.
Resisting this trend, and allowing more rest in your own life, can improve your quality of life in many different ways.
The Different Types of Rest
Let’s start by looking at the different types of rest that exist and why they are so beneficial.
Resting between workouts. Any personal trainer can tell you the value of resting between workouts and heavy exercise sessions. When you push yourself hard, you literally damage your muscle tissue. It takes time for the body to restore that muscle tissue and build it back stronger. If you keep working out despite accumulating this damage, you’ll put yourself in a position where you can never fully recover, and you won’t see the benefits of exercise. Resting between workouts is also important for psychological reasons, minimizing your potential for burnout.
Sleep. Most people realize the importance of sleep, which is a form of rest as well. Sleep scientists still don’t fully understand this phenomenon. There are many competing theories for why we need sleep and exactly how sleep functions. But what we do know is that adults, on average, need 7 to 9 hours of sleep every night to remain healthy. Getting ample sleep improves your mental and emotional health, making you less irritable, improving your cognitive abilities, and allowing you to focus. It also reduces your stress, and makes you less susceptible to a host of different health conditions, including high blood pressure, dementia, and early death. Many people may find it difficult to fall into restful sleep due to many different factors; for them, supplements such as MelaMed Premium CBD or melatonin could be beneficial in getting that healing sleep.
Work breaks and vacations. Working more hours or more days doesn’t make you a better employee. In fact, workers who take regular breaks and vacations tend to be more productive and happier than their counterparts. Even occasional periods of time away from the office can help you destress, relax, and come to work feeling refreshed and more productive.
Idle time. People tend to come up with their most creative ideas when they’re not thinking about other things. That’s why boredom is associated with creativity, and why we have cliched tropes like coming up with great ideas while you’re showering. Rest doesn’t have to be from anything in particular; just having idle time can be valuable for your mind.
Resisting the Temptation to Be Constantly Productive
If you want to take full advantage of the power of rest, you need to resist the temptation to be constantly productive. There may be external influences poisoning your mentality on this front, such as aggressive bosses, condescending family members, or even movies and TV shows that illustrate heroes as working nonstop. But if you want to resist this temptation, you need to focus on yourself and your own perspectives. What are you trying to achieve? And do you realize that rest can help you get there?
Making Time for Rest
For many people, due to the hours they work, the responsibilities they’ve taken on, or their own personal philosophy, rest doesn’t come naturally. Instead, you have to go out of your way to make time for rest. These are some of the best ways you can do it.
Schedule rest as a priority. Consider scheduling your rest the same way you would schedule any valuable event or responsibility. You always make time for work meetings, so why shouldn’t you make time for ample sleep?
Be willing to cut lower priorities from your life. Understand which priorities are lower than rest and consider cutting them out of your life or reducing them. For example, can you spend fewer hours on one of your hobbies so you can get enough sleep at night?
Communicate your needs. Set your limits and be willing to proactively communicate them. Express yourself when you feel like you’re being pushed past your natural limit – and don’t be afraid to push back on others to reinforce your boundaries.
Prove the value of rest (if necessary). If you’re met with any pushback from people in your life, consider demonstrating the value of rest with empirical evidence. For example, you can show your boss studies that suggest that 94 percent of vacations end up having a positive return on investment (ROI).
Rest has the power to revolutionize your life. Whether you’re trying to build muscle, be more productive at work, or just enjoy a higher quality of life, embracing the power of rest could be exactly what you need. All you have to do is prioritize it.
Guide created by Scottsdale Mental Health & Wellness