“If you don’t give your mind and body a break, you’re going to break. Stop being sore and exhausted and take care of your needs.” ~Lori Deschene
In November 2021, my autoimmune problems flared up. My doctor and I still aren’t sure which condition—rheumatoid arthritis or fibromyalgia—was the culprit, or if they acted accidentally, but the general pain and debilitating fatigue were solid signs that something was more active than usual.
I woke up tired, needed sleep, and often ran out of spoons—a phrase familiar to many people with chronic illness, based on a beautiful essayThe spoon theory,” wrote Christine Miserandino.
Although I may not know the reason, one thing was for sure, my body demanded rest.
Do you have any idea how hard it is to just relax?
I’m serious.
Knowing that I needed rest didn’t immediately give me the ability to actually solve it.
I would sit down to watch a show and find myself trying to multitask. Or I’d try to put off naptime like a recalcitrant toddler. Instead of throwing myself on the floor in a fit of rage, I tried to “push through” so I could finish typing an email or put a load of laundry in the dryer.
Even with a body and mind crying out for rest, it was hard to allow myself to do it. Finally, I had to train myself to rest, observing stop and rest periods.
We in the western world, especially here in the US where I live, are productive. They tell us – and we tell ourselves – all the things we “need” to do to keep busy. All forms of work, from work assignments to errands to chores, are what we have to do.
We are conditioned from a young age to be productive and busy. We hear people say things like, “I will rest when I die” and “there is no rest for the weary.” We are encouraged to “pay our dues” and “put in the work.”
If we’ve somehow been lucky enough to avoid overt messages about busyness and hard work, most of us have received those messages indirectly by observing the people in our lives.
We’ve watched our parents come home from work with arms full of grocery bags, only to fix dinner while putting the groceries away. Or we were asked what we were doing and felt bad when our answer to the question was a child’s honest “nothing”.
Long after dinner, after everything was cleaned up or tidied up and it was “down time,” we watched our parents do additional work, both paid and unpaid. Or we watched them knit, iron or putt in the house.
We were told we had to “work hard” to do so succeed. That “nothing good comes easy”. So that we don’t stop when we are tired, but only when we are “ready”.
Sitting and resting are not prioritized. Those who decide to rest often must justify it: they have to earned the right to rest.
Rest doesn’t just mean sleep, although sleep is a big part of it. This includes sitting comfortably and doing nothing.
This could mean listening to music, watching TV or meditating. Or quietly work on a puzzle or craft, or read a book or article. Maybe playing solitaire, looking out the window, or journaling.
In the fall, when I was struggling with my autoimmune flare-ups, it occurred to me that I should rest more. I was so used to overriding my body’s signals that I didn’t realize how far I was pushing myself.
When I saw how my mind and body really felt, I was shocked to find that my mind and body were almost bending, on the verge of collapse.
I waited to notice what was happening until I got to the point where I couldn’t multitask at all during the day. A banner day during that time might have been doing a single item of clothing or doing laundry or cooking dinner for my husband and me.
I was so fixated on being busy that I could no longer honestly assess my need to be busy. I lost the ability to tune into my body to know if it needed to move and stretch, or even stretch out and sleep.
If I had pushed forward much longer, I’m sure I would have gotten sick. So it was, I was dealing with brain fog, fatigue, and joint and muscle pain, all of which made life uncomfortable.
It’s easy to see now that I should never have allowed things to get to this point, but the fatigue, the pain, and the brain fog all combined to make it impossible for you to appreciate anything clearly. However, when I reached the point of crashing and burning out, I realized that I needed a serious break.
I basically cleared my calendar for at least three weeks. I cleared my work calendar of meetings, scheduled a few short blog posts and emails, and took some time off.
At first it was torture.
For one, my husband still got up and went out into the world to teach tai chi and qigong classes, modeling the “right” work behavior. On the other hand, I realized that I was unable to “just relax”.
I had to relearn how to listen to my body to discover what it needed.
I needed it too reprogram my thoughts that rest is an intrinsic right of all of us, not a reward for productivity.
I also had to learn how to actually do it do it that.
I did everything I listed earlier as rest, from naps to puzzles to sitting quietly. It was ridiculously hard.
I almost had to force myself to limit myself to single-tasking, which is doing only one task at a time. This was especially difficult when the task was mechanically simple, such as watching a TV show. My inner monologue kicks in, chastising me for “just sitting there” and encouraging me to “be productive”.
In those moments when I decided that rest meant watching a movie on TV, I sometimes sat on my hands to avoid taking out my phone, a crossword puzzle, or something else. I often put my phone on silent and deliberately leave it in another room to reduce temptation.
Full disclosure: Even when I took affirmative steps toward a task, I didn’t always succeed. However, through affirmation, I learned that nothing would happen within an hour or two that would cause me to stop resting and take immediate action.
I realized that in many ways I was retraining my nervous system to allow myself to relax. He was so used to being awake that allowing himself to rest and take some time off took some getting used to.
What I learned when I started taking my days off was that it became easier to tell what signals my body was sending. It became easier to talk to my mind and body to find out how they were feeling and what they needed.
It sounds a little dissociated to put it that way, but I’ve never felt more integrated than I do now. I can stop at any moment, feel what I’m feeling (mentally and physically), and act on my own needs in a way that is more nurturing and caring than before.
When I find myself losing focus on a project—perhaps typing a blog post or planning a workshop—I stop. Instead, thanks to months of practice, I’m taking a break and examining my brain and body. With practice, I can quickly determine when I need to take a simple break, get up and walk around a bit, walk outside or stop for the day.
I’m learning to accept that thought rest is an inherent right, not something to be earned. It’s no longer something that only happens when I push myself to the point of collapse.
As it turns out, the more I tend to rest and incorporate it into my days, the more energy I have to actually accomplish all the things I want in life.
If I add a day off or a break during the day, I am more focused when I have to work on a task. If I incorporate rest into my days, I will have the energy to work out in the morning and make a good meal for dinner.
I invite you to join me in creating actual breaks in your day when you are doing nothing “productive” at all. No phone calls, emails or texts – just relax. I’d love to hear if and how it works.
About Kelly Ramsdell
Kelly Ramsdell is the founder and CEO of Actually-I-Can, Inc., a company that helps people reclaim and redesign their lives with ease. He has written two e-books, 12 tips for sleeping and Reduce anxiety to help people through these trying times. Get them here actually-i-can.comor follow Insta, Facebookor Twitter.
