Why Rest Is Critical to Healing Your Fatigue and Health Issues

I know it seems obvious. You’re tired, therefore you should rest, right?

Well, sometimes it doesn’t feel that simple. Or you aren’t actually clear on what resting means and how it fits into your life.

Keep reading to learn a little more about what I mean when I say, “rest”, and how I know that you can fit it into your life with big benefits.

Learning to rest: one of the keys to feeling truly energetic, calm, and healthy.

In my new workshop, The Recovery Roadmap: 6 Steps to Healing Fatigue, Unexplained Symptoms, and Burnout, one of the the steps is: 

Learn to Rest

It almost seems too frivolous, silly even, doesn't it? Like okay, Katie, learn to rest?! That's the advice you are going to give me about how to feel better?

But hear me out: we are living in a world and in a time where most of us don't actually rest, unless we are literally sleeping. We stimulate our brains near constantly between the internet, social media, the news, our jobs, our families, our activities, our shows, and on and on. 

(Check in: do you bring your phone to the toilet? If yes, there's a good chance that you are in this category of giving yourself little to no time to rest on a daily basis.)

Tell me, when was the last time you actually did something truly restful? Like reading a book, making some art, laying on the couch looking at the sky, taking a nap, or deciding to go for a recovery walk, rather than a workout. 

Hopefully you have carved out some rest time for yourself. But the truth is that a lot of us do not! You think you're resting when you collapse on the couch and scroll, but what you are really doing is bottoming out while you stimulate your brain with a new piece of information (often highly emotionally stimulating information) every 3 seconds 🙃

Doesn't sound very restful or restorative, does it?

You know what doesn't happen well unless you are truly resting? Healing. Digestion. Muscle repair. Cognitive integration. Hormonal balance. Inner peace.

But Katie!!! There is no time!!! (I hear this response a lotttttt) 

For a second I will ignore the fact that many of you are spending literally hours on your phones everyday (which means that there is, in fact, time), and give you another perspective:

You don't need that much time. 

3-5 conscious breathes takes less than two minutes and can instantly shift you from fight/flight/freeze to rest/digest.

Dancing/moving/shaking for one 3 minute song takes three minutes.

Keeping your phone outside your bedroom so you read before bed rather than scroll is simply shifting your routine. 

A five minute mindful walk takes five minutes.

Writing a daily gratitude list takes three minutes (giving gratitude in your head while you brush your teeth doesn't even add any time, how about that?)

 You get what I am saying.

Resting isn't simply sleeping or not doing.

It is shifting your nervous system state to a more calm, peaceful, restorative, and abundant place. It is prioritizing your wellbeing, rather than constantly giving, overdoing, and performing. 

When I talk about “rest" I am actually talking about nervous system regulation. I am talking about learning to be calm inside of your own body and give your system space to function and flow, rather than constantly being “on” and “doing.”

Make rest a priority and your whole life changes: more energy, inner calm, clearer decision making, more mindful relationships, just to name a few benefits. 

Seems worth it, huh?