Why The Mind And Body Need Rest For Our Best Life

Rest The Mind And Body

We are discussing sleep this month. As one of the forgotten Pillars of Wellness, we would be remiss if we didn’t include the topic of sleep for you and your best life. Today we are sharing ideas on Why The Mind And Body Need Rest For Our Best Life.

"Rest when you’re weary. Refresh and renew yourself, your body, your mind, your spirit. Then get back to work."”— Ralph Marston

Living is hard work. The thousands, even millions, of individual metabolic and assembly line style processes that our minds and bodies have to constantly go through, on both the micro and macroscopic levels, are simply exhausting.

Therefore, we need rest as much as we need H20 and glucose in order to function in even the most basic of ways. And when it comes to resting, merely sitting still on a fairly regular basis is not going to cut it in terms of satisfactorily relaxing our organs and their processes. Check out this article from Onfit.edu.au – The importance of resting your mind -  https://onfit.edu.au/health-fitness-blog/the-importance-of-resting-your-mind/

Rest that de-stresses the mind and body in terms of both muscular activity and thoughts alike, is what is truly necessary for us to recharge, rejuvenate, and be able to continue to work.

A lot of ventures in scientific research have been devoted to not only defining the term “rest” in relation to what the term means for the human mind and the human body, but that research has also had to explore figuring out what the changing standards of resting are, as people evolve, and times and environments change.

The speed at which our internal processes function is referred to as our metabolic rate, and obviously, there is a cyclical rhythm, similar to our circadian rhythm, that determines the energy at each metabolic stage. We expend calories both when we are active and when we are at rest, however, the calories that we save while resting end up being incredibly valuable in contributing to the energy that we need to expand while we are active.

What the resting requirements (and subsequent ways to perpetuate them) were for people who lived 10,000, 1,000, or even 100 years ago are different than they are today, and will most definitely be different in 10 years, primarily due to technology, increasingly demanding workloads and expectations, evolving schedules, and a world that never sleeps.

What we have learned so far about the correlation between states of rest and periods of activity, is that the substantive nature of what we do when we shut down, and how we achieve that so-called “turning off,” is equal to the quality of our activity when we are in motion.

Sleep, although absolutely a fundamental example of rest (in all of its varieties and definitions), is not the only way in which our physical and mental selves need to take a break, and we need to tend individually to both types of restful activities that heal our minds and the inactivity that rests our bodies.

For me, going on a hike in a beautiful place in nature will do wonders for relaxing the mind, (and actually, even though hiking is technically a potentially stressful physical activity, it can actually be restful to muscles if the activity itself relaxes the person). It is important to figure out what activities will allow a restful state for you and practice that.

We need other beneficial sessions of rest, at regular periodic intervals, in addition to the hours that we devote to sleeping, in order to make the best of our time when we are not “taking it easy.”

Think About Rest As A Way To:

• Restore Energy or another way to think about this is to “recharge your battery”
• Repair Your Body – taking time to rest allows your mind and body to repair at a cellular level. When you take some time to reduce stress it promotes the feeling of vitality mind, body and spirit.
• Rest helps improve focus – take time to rest the mind - when we quiet our thoughts to heal. This helps with better concentration and focus. We have found when we practice our Wim Hof breathing every day our concentration and focus are better. You can find out more on Wim Hof breathing here - https://www.wimhofmethod.com/practice-the-method
• Improve your mood - "Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are." -- Chinese Proverb – this is a simple way to think about how rest helps improve mood.
• Rest for creativity – If constantly living in the busy of life we miss out on the quiet moments that help connect with our creativity.

Finally, humans are animals that are bound to the laws of nature and biology, regardless of the era in which we live, and resting our minds and bodies, down to the cellular level, is equally as essential a process to the modern-day professional as it was to the first caveman.

What are your thoughts on Why The Mind And Body Need Rest For Our Best Life? Share any thoughts in the comments below.

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