Abundant Mind #007

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Have you ever found yourself feeling burned out after a week or two of being really productive? 

What about suddenly getting sick with colds and fever out of nowhere? 

For me, it can feel unfair that the momentum I built up for weeks suddenly comes to a halt.

This has happened to me a couple of times in the past 2 months. 

Back in April, I got into a good flow of productivity.

I was exercising 3-4 times a week as I’m preparing for a triathlon in July. 

At the same time, I was spending the mornings and afternoons productively leading meetings, learning sessions, and workshops. 

Out of nowhere, I started to get colds and it later developed into the flu. 

As I recovered in May, I got myself back into the momentum of productivity again. 

But maybe I was doing it too hurriedly and giving my body too much to handle. 

Because come the first week of June, I developed another round of colds which progressed into a fever. 

It took me a full week of rest to finally recover. 

It didn’t help that I was seeing so much content online on hustle culture while I was resting because I only felt guilty that I wasn’t doing anything.

In today’s work climate, this culture is rampant, especially with some of the productivity gurus we may come across online. 

Hustle culture perpetuates the idea that we have to squeeze every hour of the day working, grinding, and hustling, for us to achieve our goals. 

It becomes difficult to experience work-life balance with these ideas encouraging us to keep working beyond tiredness and sometimes even exhaustion.

We tend to forget that rest is also an important component to productivity and balance. 

In this week’s newsletter issue, we’ll go over the 4 different types of rest, how to prioritize rest in your schedule, and how to overcome the guilt that may come from resting. 

The 4 Different Types of Rest

When we hear the word "rest," we usually think of taking a break from physical activity. 

But having a good work-life balance means more than just taking breaks to rest your body. 

There are many kinds of rest that are important for our health. 

Learning about and adding these different ways of taking a break in our daily lives can help us feel more balanced overall. 

1. Physical Rest - This means giving our body time to rest and recover by getting enough sleep and taking breaks. Getting quality sleep and taking regular breaks allows you to rest your body so that it can recover and feel refreshed. Something you can do is to develop the discipline of going to bed (without gadgets) at a set time every evening so that you can get the perfect amount of sleep. By removing the use of gadgets like your phone or tablet before bed, you’re able to get a better quality of sleep. This practice allows you to feel rested upon waking up the next day. 

2. Mental Rest - Our brains are always working, thinking, and figuring things out. This happens constantly throughout the day. Mental rest means taking a break from thinking too hard or giving your mind complex tasks. You can take mental breaks by meditating, practicing mindfulness, or by doing something fun that doesn't require a lot of mental effort.

1. Emotional Rest - Sometimes we can feel really tired and worn-out because of all the things we have to do at work and in our personal lives. This can also affect how we feel emotionally. Taking specific types of rest can help us feel better. If you feel like what you need is emotional rest, you can spend time journaling and writing down how you are feeling. You can also spend quality time with people that you love for emotional rest or even with a pet. We have a french bulldog at home named Coco, and whenever I play with her and spend time with her I feel emotionally rested afterwards.

2. Spiritual Rest - Taking care of our spiritual health is also important for having a balanced life. Spiritual rest involves connecting with our values, beliefs, and finding meaning beyond the daily grind. Something you can do is to identify a deeper purpose behind the things you do on a regular basis. Writing this newsletter series, for example. For me, the deeper purpose behind this newsletter series is this: I know that someday an idea I share will encourage at least 1 person to make a different choice in their lives so that they can improve it for the better. That deeper purpose makes the writing of these newsletters a spiritual rest of sorts for me. Other things that you can do to practice spiritual rest is to meditate, spend time in nature, or spend quiet time with a higher power you believe in through practices like prayer.

To have a good balance between work and your personal life, you need to be able to practice different kinds of rest. 

If you ignore any of them, you could become exhausted and unbalanced. 

If we intentionally take breaks for our body, mind, emotions, and spirit, we can build a strong base for long-lasting health and success. 

How to Prioritize Rest in Your Schedule

Set Boundaries. Give yourself a clear and set time between work and personal life. 

If you don’t define specific times for work and non-work activities, things can get muddled up and you’ll always feel you have no time to rest. 

Part of setting boundaries is learning how to say no to others as well.

With our culture in the Philippines, this can be a bigger challenge for us compared to people in other cultures. 

However, this is a skill that anyone can learn how to do. It may just be uncomfortable to do in the beginning. 

There is a term called overcommitment which means saying yes to too many things. 

This eventually causes us to feel overwhelmed because of the many things we need to accomplish because of what we said yes to in the first place. 

Identify tasks and activities that align with what is important to you and learn to say no to other things that do not. 

Remember, prioritizing rest is not a luxury; it’s a necessity. 

Your alternative is constantly feeling tired and burned out which isn’t good for you, or others. 

Try out these ideas and make rest a fundamental part of your routine, so that you can create more balance in your life. 

How to Overcome the Guilt of Resting

(This last section is more for people who feel a sense of guilt whenever they rest. 

Some people don’t have trouble with resting and don’t feel guilty about it, which is a goal that I’m personally striving for.)

We may feel pressure to constantly work, grind, and hustle. 

This may come from a subconscious need to prove our worth to ourselves and others through productivity. 

But again, I will reiterate that rest is not a luxury; it is a necessity. 

In last week’s newsletter issue, I talked about how to overcome negative emotions like guilt. 

I mentioned that it starts with recognizing the emotion. 

To overcome the feeling of guilt when resting, we have to consciously and intentionally recognize the truth of resting: that it is a necessary part of productivity. 

We need to rest for us to recharge and recover. 

Being rested allows us to be at our most productive. 

So whenever you feel guilt when resting, you can tell yourself this:

“I am exactly where I need to be, doing exactly what I need to do at this moment in time. I accept that I need to rest for me to be at my best in whatever it is I want to accomplish. By resting now I am becoming a better and better me for later.” 

Use these ideas I’ve shared with you and incorporate them in your day-to-day lives and see how much your quality of life improves. 

You deserve it. 

Talk soon, 

Zach

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