Do You Need More Rest?

What do you do when you feel weary? Burned out? Uninspired and ready to give up?

How do you find the energy to move forward in creative projects when you face personal trauma like the loss of a loved one?

How do you escape the creeping sense of panic when life feels chaotic, overly busy, or out of control?

In all these scenarios, one key to help you move forward is to give yourself adequate rest. And I don’t mean just a few more hours of sleep. True restoration is often active rather than passive, intentionally feeding what is lacking. And we need many different types of rest to fully restore our body, mind and spirit.

In the book Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity, Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith defines seven type of rest we must consider to be fully whole and healthy.

Here’s a brief description of each:

• Physical A lack of physical rest may cause symptoms like exhaustion, pain, or poor health. Our bodies need rest in order to function properly. Resting our bodies means sleep, but also includes stretching, exercise, and a wholesome diet that allows our bodies to stay flexible and healthy. If you experience frequent headaches or brain fog, you might be suffering from food sensitivities. If so, avoiding trigger foods can restore your body and help you feel well again.
• Mental Our brains experience a constant deluge of information. We can exhaust ourselves with unhelpful mental habits such as dwelling on negative thoughts, reliving the past, or worrying about future what-ifs. If you experience decision fatigue, mental fog, or feelings of overwhelm, you probably need mental rest. You can find rest by focusing on what really matters and allowing yourself to let go of the non-essential mental chatter. Meditation, brain dumps, and morning routines can help.
• Emotional The emotions that surround us—whether from real or virtual people—affect our emotional health. If we don’t monitor the emotions we allow to fill our minds, or don’t process our emotions in a healthy way, we end up with emotional fatigue, which may lead to anxiety, irritability, anger, or depression. Journaling or talking things out with a friend can help us find emotional rest, but sometimes we may need therapy to restore traumatized or burned-out emotions.
• Spiritual Our faith and relationship with God affect our ability to feel rested in other areas of life. When you feel distant from God, or feel hopeless and defeated by life, those are signs that you need to renew and restore your spirit.
• Social We humans were created to be social creatures. Even introverts need healthy social interaction. While periods of solitude are restorative, too much time alone can lead to loneliness, a tendency to avoid people, and depression. Solitude may seem like the best solution to avoid the drain of difficult relationships, but in fact our soul needs positive relationships in order to be restored.
• Sensory Our modern world is filled with noise, music, blinking lights, flashing images, enhanced flavors, perfumed cleaning products, and a million other things that stimulate our senses. Our modern habit of constant screen time is like living on a diet of junk food. The constant bombardment on our senses can lead to becoming either overstimulated or desensitized to the world around us. Find sensory rest by intentionally escaping or blocking out the sensory inputs like screens, bright lights, or constant noise. Instead, focus on one thing that brings you joy, like savoring a favorite food or taking a bath and really paying attention to how the water feels on your skin.
• Creative We can be so busy juggling career and family responsibilities that we forget to be mindful of the world we pass thru on the way to checking off our next to-do item. When we don’t allow ourselves time for creative play because we’re too focused on the next action item, we lack joy, wonder, and satisfaction in life. If you are struggling with writer’s block or you’re writing feels flat and uninspired, you may need to put your creative “work” aside and give yourself time for creative play that’s unrelated to your WIP.

In order to produce our best work, we must give ourselves permission to pursue proper rest in all seven of these areas. We need to understand which areas of our lives are being drained and how to replenish those areas. For more information on the seven types of rest and which ones you are most in need of restoring, try Dr. Dalton-Smith’s Rest Quiz.

I hope I have encouraged you to seek the rest you need to be whole and healthy.

Lisa E. Betz worked as an engineer, substitute teacher, and play director before becoming an award-winning mystery writer. She brings her analytical mind, quirky humor, and positive outlook to all she writes. She draws inspiration from thirty-five years of leading Bible studies to create entertaining mysteries set in the world of the early church, and then she fills that world with eccentric characters, independent females, and an occasional sausage-snatching cat. Her first novel, Death and a Crocodile, garnered a gold medal in the Illumination Book Awards.

In addition to writing novels, Lisa blogs about living with authenticity and purpose. Visit her at www.lisaebetz.com. Facebook LisaEBetzWriter Twitter @LisaEBetz and Pinterest Lisa E Betz Intentional Living.