Rest & Relaxation
How do you feel about resting? Is it something you are able to give yourself, guilt free and regularly or is it tinged with guilt or perhaps enforced upon you when your body is poorly. When and if you rest how does that feel? Is it easy to rest or does it feel uncomfortable? Fighting the urge to get on what the list of things that need to be done.
There seems to be an epidemic of ‘busy’ and ‘tired’ it’s become the new normal. The idea of the high achieving yet worn out woman dominates and everyone is ‘fine’ when you ask although you suspect it might not be the case.
If you are tired and yet at the same time don’t have time to rest or even believe that it will make a difference this is an invitation to you to press pause and review your wellbeing.
It’s time for you to ‘invest in rest’.
This isn’t about giving up on your dreams this is about resting so you can fulfil your purpose from a place of rest feeling alive and vital.
“Rest and play, are as vital to our health as nutrition and exercise.”
Being busy all the time without rest puts strain on our nervous system. When we are busy all the time it stimulates our sympathetic nervous system. This is the part of our nervous system that controls the ‘fight-or-flight’ response. Long term stress is thought to lead to anxiety, depression, problems sleeping and another physical issues. If we want to reduce our stress load it’s important to stimulate the other part of our autonomic nervous system - the parasympathetic nervous system. When this part of our nervous system is stimulated we are in ‘rest & digest’.
’Rest & digest’ is time our to rest mind and body and gives both the opportunity to reboot and restore. In a resting state the body has the opportunity to heal and the mind becomes clearer, gaining greater clarity and perspective.