Why is Rest So Important? Your Guide to Reducing Stress
Lately it seems that stress is coming at us from every direction. Whether trying to occupy the kids while balancing working from home, dealing with unemployment and working to find a new job, missing the normal escape through your social life, or simply reading the news headlines each morning - stress has become a regular part of everyday life more than ever before.
Why is Rest So Important?
Humans naturally evolved to balance high levels of stress (hunting, running from predators, etc.) with periods of rest. However in our modern world, we often maintain that high level of stress all throughout the day as we try to accomplish everything on our to-do list.
Think about it this way: how many of these scenarios make up your regular day-to-day life?
- Only getting 6 hours (or less) of sleep each night
- Eating a lot of carbohydrate-heavy foods and/or drinking sugary beverages
- Exercising less than 3x a week
- Standing when eating your meals, or working through mealtime
- Driving your car
- Balancing kids and family with working from home
- Need to be constantly productive
- General feeling of being overwhelmed
If you notice more than a few items on this list relating to you, it means that your stress levels are very high all day long.
Self-Care is Not Selfish
Taking the time to rest is vital for maintaining good physical and mental well-being. Americans often consider rest as something that is synonymous with laziness, and it could not be more different. Setting up this negative association means that we aren’t allowing our bodies to rest and repair in the natural ways we so desperately need.
For example, when building muscle it is often recommended to alternate days for working out your arms with working out your legs. This is because you see better results when you let the muscles you worked the day before rest and repair while you work out another muscle group.
Rest and self-care are important components in allowing the body to repair. When we go through every day neglecting to take care of ourselves without any break, we risk getting sick (due to weakened immune health), have more difficulty digesting food and absorbing all its nutrients, and have issues with simple tasks and problem-solving, which can lead to less sleep and even more stress. This causes the cycle to start all over again every single day.
Simple Ways to Reduce Stress
- Before getting into the craziness of the day, add a packet of True Lemon to cold filtered water and drink it down.
- When you reach a good stopping point with work, take a 10-15 minute break to stretch, go for a walk, or make a cup of tea.
- Move any distracting apps off the main homepage of your smartphone.
- Always turn off your phone at least 1-hour before bedtime.
- Get movement everyday, even if it’s just a short walk.
- Try to get to bed before 10pm.
- Take small breaks at different intervals throughout the day. Use 5 minutes to meditate, call a friend for a chat, or simply take 5 slow deep breaths.
- Eat your meals without any distractions (not while working or on your phone), and chew slowly.
Relaxing and taking the time to rest is vital for maintaining good mental and physical health. Making a point to rest, even just for small moments throughout your day, will do wonders for reducing stress and finding happiness throughout every facet of life.
