Rest: a debt that must be paid

In my line of work, I get the opportunity to engage with insomnia quite frequently. It is rarely the problem for which people come to therapy, but it always shows up as a primary problem source three times out of ten.

My clients, like myself, have lofty ambitions that keep them awake at night and energize them through the day, leaving no room for slacking. To many of us, rest is slacking, fatigue is laziness, and burnout is satisfaction.

Rest is a priority to others, but their livelihood requires so much work that rest becomes a fantasy.

Unfortunately, a lack of rest does not appear in our health like a dislocated joint (instantaneously). It takes time as the body is designed to adapt to situations while attempting to self-regulate.

This adaptation ability thus makes us feel like we have overridden the need for rest when we have merely increased our Rest Debt.

I have met people who brag about their body clock waking them up at a specific time daily, even if they just slept. To compound the problem, many go to work for the whole day with the assumption that their body clock waking them up is an indicator that their body has enough energy for the day.

Kindly check in with a medical professional about how cortisol, adrenaline and energy work in your system.

It is no secret that your muscle masses form differently, your appetite for healthy food diminishes, your attentiveness wanes, your craving for sugar and fast food increases, your self-control tends to go out the window, your ability to recollect information is slower, your weight is likely to increase and of course, the proper medical conditions.

When we constantly demand our bodies to perform when we have not replenished what is lost, we get into debt. That debt must be paid because your body needs you to stay alive.

How that debt will be paid differs per person, but your system generally withdraws from places it deems unimportant and sends energy to prioritized areas.

I understand how resting is expensive financially (outsourcing or automating your roles), emotionally (worrying if things will be done well without you), socially (cutting off engagements) and physically (having to sit still when it is not your style).

Yet, I have an idea of how lack of rest is expensive emotionally (being cranky and on a short leash), financially (making faulty decisions), romantically (being absent-minded and overwhelmed), medically (going in and out of the hospital for diagnosis and treatment), and parentally (acting like your children are the problem and making enemies out of them).

Patterns

Your body is likely one of the most automated systems you will ever experience. For automation to work, there needs to be routine input and routine output.

In the article, Cheat Days, I explained patterns like this:

These patterns require your mind to work in a particular direction, lighting up the same set of neurons every time you repeat an activity (or hear the same thing), thereby creating a neural pathway.

When you change a pattern physically, you are also attempting to change the way your mind processes that routine — it needs to light up different neurons from the old one and create a new neural pathway.

The problem with discontinuing a new routine is that your mind processes it as a distraction and returns to the old route it has already created.

When sleeplessness becomes a pattern, you are less likely to fall asleep easily because sleeping is now considered a distraction.

To understand how you reward and condition yourself into insomnia, read the articles in the recommendations below and apply them to your rest patterns.

Resting Again

I know you have heard that resting is not sleeping (even if sleep is part of it). Let me simplify this and say resting is disengagement.

If I am online and I go offline, I have disengaged. However, many of us do not disengage; we transfer engagement. You are still engaging if you go off Instagram for the day but go on Twitter.

I loved novels a lot — I used to rest by reading them. Until I realized good novels were keeping me up all night — engagement.

Engagement happens when a particular person, situation, activity or environment causes you to use energy, time and attention at a higher intensity.

You think it is mere comedy videos, but in reality, it is your eyes exposed to blue light just like it was at the office, your mind tracing patterns in the speech and affirming or disproving (your emotions could even change), your mind filing new words and being comfortable with old ones.

You are never resting online.

Say you have shut down your devices for the weekend, and your Best Friend calls your home line and makes you laugh. That call (however long or short) will make your mind and body active even though it is loving.

The key is knowing when you are depleted.

Unrealistic Rest

I have heard full-time employees tell me they will take a month’s break during the year — that is a lie.

1. That is their opportunity to bond with family
2. That is their opportunity to restock their homes
3. That is the only extensive break where they can read and upskill
4. That is their opportunity to finally be lazy and binge-watch all the movies they have been hearing about
5. That is their opportunity to visit locations

None of these activities is about reviewing stressors and cutting off extras. If anything, all of these require new spaces on their calendars.

Rest is not about lying down all day. You must, however, be able to unplug from the need to meet a schedule.

It is unrealistic to want to burn yourself out for eleven months and rest in one. In the same way, it is unrealistic to burn yourself out for twenty-eight days and want to recoup in two.

It is a fantasy, and dare I say, a myth that your one-month annual leave will eliminate eleven months of bad decisions (that you intend to continue when the leave is over).

Pragmatic Rest

You cannot microwave rest for long-term stress; long-term stress deserves long-term rest.

Do not think! That was all my doctor kept saying when I had a breakdown in 2021.

Despite how much I played it down, my biggest fear was that I would lose my cognition when I recovered — I could barely form coherent sentences without developing a headache that lasted till the next day (excluding how hard it was to remember things for months after I recovered).

I worsened the situation every time I tried to escape the compulsory leave.

One week, my doctor explained it to me like this:

Think of your body like your laptop needing an update, but you have been using it for days nonstop. So, it suddenly begins an update and shuts down all applications in the process — it will restart, but it needs to shut down first.

Every time you force yourself to work, you are trying to force the laptop to get back online, which will only delay the process because of the multiple commands.

Pragmatic rest means you know how much work you need to do and you create strategic breaks accordingly while being productive.

Why do you think Apps, Phones and Laptops send notifications saying an update will be initiated around 12–3 am? They expect the device to be less active at those hours.

Do you know the hours when you are less busy as a person? Track your activities for the next two weeks, find the timeline where you are least productive and eliminate those activities — compress them into something else, outsource them or delegate them.

I discovered that I am least productive in November of every year because all my projects are executed between August and October. By November, my body is barely present. Between December and January, I am in beast mode, but by February, I tend to be a baby girl — I am usually done with the heavy lifting and have time for family.

Daily, I am at my most articulate after a good sleep. This makes intellectual work my first call and rote activities my midday responsibility. This is a guaranteed pattern, even if my sleep time changes.

I do not rest when I am fatigued; I rest before I am fatigued. This looks like switching between a mentally demanding task to one that requires a pattern and less attention.

Make this suit you.

Work and parenting are two full-time jobs. So, find a way to descend from the high stress before sleeping or relaxing.

Instead of researching with your free time, have family time — the feel-good hormones released in your system will help you rest better. On the contrary, researching will remind you of your unfinished work and pressure (this will spike your stress levels).

If you are tired, do not choose an activity like reading or watching (it is like inhaling); choose something hands-on like baking, gardening, journaling, painting or dancing (something that feels like exhaling all you have been holding). For me, it is messing around with oils and herbs.

If you are sad and restless, movies and sad music are not your friends; try skipping or any high-cardio activity, go into the sunlight and have a conversation with someone who loves you.

Sustainable Rest

To rest effectively is to rest continuously. This means you need to create a system of rest.

A system of rest is a routine that always leads to rest regardless of what changes in your schedule. This means you do not need to sleep during the weekend if that week was unproductive — you would dislike your productivity if you did that.

1. Know your routine (be realistic when it changes).
2. Rearrange your schedule every single time you add or remove an activity.
3. When you declutter your overloaded calendar, do not replace the activities.
4. Master saying no consistently so you are not overly committed and spread thin.
5. Get a thirty-minute silence break daily (no phone, sound, conversation, or work) when awake.
6. Timestamp or Workstamp your extended rest: determine how much work you must finish or how much time must elapse before your next major break.

Silence Break

I had accidentally stumbled into this as an undergraduate when I was learning to listen to myself — I would lie down for hours and do nothing other than pay attention to my internal dialogue.

This was how I realized how self-critical, jealous and insecure I was. This was how I began to realize my needs. This was how I began listening to myself, just like I listened to others.

You cannot successfully give yourself rest when you do not know what rest is in that season. If you feel unsuccessful, you will never rest because rest feels like failure and self-betrayal.

To rest correctly, you must spend time with yourself to know what is gnawing at you at the back of your mind.

Another way to maximize the silence is to journal. This helps you see your feelings, biases, limitations, frustrations, desperations and ambitions on paper. Journaling can be in note or sketch form.

Finally, silence breaks are great for shutting down your mind from the hyper-productivity and noise in our world. Your REM is delayed every night because you go to bed too mentally busy and stimulated.

Multiple breaks a day can help you experience less stimulation and stress. Alternatively, one long nightly break can help you fall asleep faster and deeper (if you make a routine out of this).

Major Breaks

Silence breaks are required daily to help manage the daily bustle of life and ensure you do not accumulate stress. However, you need major breaks like your annual leave to recharge for heavy-duty tasks.

These are perfect after concluding major projects or when planning to begin one. They are required to give your system the feeling of a fresh start.

So, pack your bags and sail the world if you will. This break is more leisurely than a microwave attempt to combat a breakdown.

If you pay the rest debt daily, you will not need to use your major breaks for emergency rest.