Importance of rest for our energy in trainings and life in general

We already wrote about the importance of preparation and introducing NEW(S) habits.

And we are inspired to dive deeper into one specific topic connected with the letter S meaning Sleep.

Watching one TED talk from a series called “How to be a better human” motivated us to explore the situations when sleep is not the only, or most helpful way to raise our level of energy.

The sentence we heard: “Sleep and rest are not the same thing”, confused us at the beginning.

If you are confused too, when read this, try asking yourself:
Did you sometimes feel so exhausted, even after having enough sleep?

According to Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, author of the book Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Renew Your Sanity, “We live in a society of high-achieving, high-productivity, chronically tired and chronically burned-out people,” and that “true power of rest” lies in understanding the different ways we can practice to restore our energy.

There are seven different types of rest that we need in order to feel truly rested and rejuvenated.

“Recognizing your own rest deficits is the first step to being at your personal and professional best,” says Dr Saundra.

So let’s learn about each type and try experimenting with new ways to rest.

1. Physical rest
First type of rest, called physical rest, can be passive or active. We are passively resting when we sleep or nap, and physically actively resting when we perform activities which encourage circulation in our body and enable our body to be more flexible and restore our energy, like stretching, yoga or massage.

Question for you:
Do you practice active physical activities before, after or even during your training session?
How would you benefit from them in an online or offline environment?

2. Mental rest

Do you feel exhausted and overwhelmed even if you sleep enough? You wake up at night thinking about work, constantly reviewing something in your head and have difficulties concentrating? Than you probably need a mental rest.

If you want to have more of this kind of rest, advices for you to slow down a little bit and clear your mind are:
to organize short breaks every two hours during workday,
have a notebook and pen or notepad beside bed to write down things that keep you awake.

Question for you:
How many breaks do you arrange for yourself during training preparation or training facilitation?
How can you enable space for mental rest for training participants during training?

3. Sensory rest

You sometimes feel your senses are overwhelmed. Looking at a computer screen all day, or listening to many conversations (participating or hearing them in the background in a work space), can cause this feeling. And what can we do about that?
Sometimes something simple as closing our eyes could be helpful.
The other advice is to decide to turn off all your devices when you finish with work.

Question for you:
How often do you find yourself successful in resisting external stimuluses?
Can you intentionally introduce the small habit of closing your eyes for a few minutes several times during work day?
What are the ideas in order to introduce sensory rest for you and tour participants during the trainings?

4. Creative rest

Your job is connected to constantly solving problems or there is frequent need for fresh ideas, and sometimes you find yourself stuck and unmotivated?
You can find inspiration and creative rest by:
– Remembering the first time you saw some world wonder or some art that left you amazed
– Exploring nature, go hiking
– Just having a walk or some nice time in park nearby or your own garden
– You can also search for inspiration on Pinterest and create your own visual boards on Miro or Mural.

Question for you:
Where do you find inspiration when designing training sessions?
What triggers your creative moments?
What would your visual board look like?

5. Emotional rest

It is important to you to be nice to other people. So much you sometimes accept some obligations and tasks even if you do not feel like doing it? And often after you say yes to someone, you regret. Does this sound familiar? Anyone called you a people pleaser?
If some of the answers to these questions are yes, emotional rest is what you need more of.

They say this kind of rest requires real courage to show our authentic selves, express our feelings in an open and honest way and to disagree and say no in an assertive way.

Person who invested in emotional rest allows him/herself to be vulnerable and admit that he/she is not at his/her best at the moment.

Question for you:
How often do you accept tasks or invest time in activities just to satisfy others?
What is the first next opportunity you can try to say no.

6. Social rest

This kind of rest is pretty much connected to the previous one. It is about balancing how we invest our time and assessing the amount of time we spend in some exhausting relationships compared to time with people with whom we recharge our batteries and feel well.

It is important to become aware that you are choosing how you spend your time.

You are socially resting when you surround yourself with positive people who provide you support.

Question for you:
If you create a list of great people in your environment who make you feel well – who would be on it?
Try to pick some names from the list and organize some time with those person/s.
If we take into consideration how our job as adult educators looks like, what would be your biggest challenge as a trainer regarding search for social rest.
What would be the first step in overcoming it?

7. Spiritual rest

When you feel engaged, have a sense of belonging and you know your purpose – you found your spiritual rest. Some people pray, others meditate and some introduce some contribution to the community. It is all about feeling that we are connecting our physical and mental side, and that we are doing something meaningful and important to us.

Question for you:
How would you define your purpose as a trainer?
How do you live according to your purpose?
What could you do even more in this journey of supporting and educating others?

As we mentioned in the beginning, sleep is not the only way to recharge energy and feel rested.

Now, the question for you is how do you rest?

After reading this article, what would be the type of rest you would like to experiment and invest more time in it?

For all of you who prefer visual and auditory learning style – follow the link to the whole talk – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGNN4EPJzGk

And please, leave us a comment on our social media channels about your wellbeing practices which can be useful to us and our trainers.