As the Bloganuary prompt of the day came out, I’m lying on my couch for day two of mandatory rest – aka my body decided I need to slow down so I’m sick.

With this being the moment I read the prompt, I instantly had a response;

If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?

If I had a freeway billboard I could put up, it would say;

SLOW DOWN YOU DESERVE TO REST

It would probably have something cute like a turtle walking or maybe this picture of my cat I took yesterday while I lay on the couch all day. But it would be simple and small and have a website linked to the importance of slowing down.

In today’s society, the social norm is being fast paced – if you’re not working at your main job you’re rushing from here to there, working on your side hustle or going to wild parties. Of course, that’s not the norm for most but that’s the expectation. Throw in the shame that the current baby making age adults are feeling for not having “enough” kids, and you can see our western culture does not value rest, unless you’re able to afford to take time off to go to a nice beach vacation.

The word “rest” can be defined as a noun: a rest is a refreshing quiet, ease or inactivity after exertion. Or as a verb: to rest is to refresh oneself or to relieve weariness.

Auckland physio website

Writing from my own personal experience (and maybe this post is a note to self), I often feel very guilty about taking rest. Since COVID lockdowns I have worked hard to learn the value of rest and slowing down with minimal guilt. I try to schedule into my day some quiet time to do something relaxing like reading a book for joy or playing my Nintendo switch. It’s an ongoing practice for me to stop myself and reflect on whether my rest time is actually restful (for example if I choose to paint is that restful in the moment or am I choosing to paint something that is stressing me out). Every once in a while my body slows me down physically by making me sick so I NEED to rest, and even then I feel that guilt. Yesterday my wife was puttering around our apartment and made me soup at one point and I felt overwhelming guilt that I was just lying around. Why do we do this to ourselves?

In the website I linked the quote from above, they talk about different kinds of rest including physical rest, mental rest, emotional rest and sensory rest. I love this split up of the four different kinds of rest especially as an occupational therapist who works with individuals who are very emotionally and sensory charged every day.

Something that I take into consideration today when I am trying to rest, is what my body needs in the moment. Take a moment and think about a time you felt extremely rested. Maybe you were on a beach going for a walk in the sand, maybe you were in bed reading a book, or in a bathtub with warm light glittering from lit candles. What characteristics of the moments you thought about made you consider it restful? Were you enjoying the temperature, activity, sound, food etc? Is there a way you can incorporate some of those characteristics to make your daily rest come to life?

I personally love cozy things; cozy videos, lights, blankets, pillows etc. I also know that I need to be able to distract my mind with an activity in order to truly rest because my thoughts race otherwise (I’m NOT a meditator hah). So to set up my space for a restful time, I like bringing a bunch of snacks that make me happy, blankets, pillows, favourite comfy clothing, maybe an easy book to read or a cozy video game to play. Maybe I’ll light a candle or if I’m not feeling that, I’ll turn off the big light and light my space with lamps (the Danish love Hygge lighting if you’re interested!) . Nature sounds relax me and it’s shown through research that watching nature videos can be beneficial for your mental health as well (and my cats love them) so I may have some YouTube videos playing on my tv while I hang out. Whatever environment you can create to rest in, do that! Remember though that restful activities you choose MUST provide you with rest – if you hate reading or get stressed out by art or video games, chances are those are not restful activities for you!

Before you drive away from my billboard, what does your rest look like and what would you like to try in the future?

And one last time before you drive away;

SLOW DOWN, YOU DESERVE TO REST