Sometimes life feels like a treadmill that you can’t get off of. “How am I suppose to make time for rest?” – I can hear you say. First I want you to consider your belief. What do you think of the following statement?

Rest is unproductive.

Do you agree?

If you do, you might want to consider your relationship with rest as a starting point.

Why is it important to take rest?

Let’s dive further..

Make Time for Rest – What is REST?

What does a time of rest mean?

This is really important to consider if you are busy and have no time.

We often consider rest to be sitting down, closing our eyes, doing nothing. That’s rest – right?

Well yes – but what to do when you have no time to rest?

I can give you a much better way to rest which is very productive and healthy.

It requires some effort to start but you will soon be in a rhythm and have good flow that is sustainable long term.

A different Approach to Rest.

My opinion is that as humans we require rest in different areas:

  • Physical
  • Mental
  • Emotional

If you believe that you need to rest all three at once, then I can completely understand why it doesn’t happen.

Picture of a woman sat on a sofa with her head in her hands. Around her there is laundry, toys and a work planner. Part of an article - how to make time for rest when life is busy

When you are busy and have no time, it’s too much to consider resting all these parts together. That becomes a big break from life, and will be something we’ll likely put off, thinking other things are more important.

But if we consider these things separately, we soon realize we can actually continue to be productive even while in REST state.

Is it OK to rest and do nothing? Absolutely, but this is an approach for a very busy person.

While you are charging your mobile you can still use it, likewise, YOU can still be useful while YOU are re-charging.

I use this point a lot. When charging a mobile, you have limits, you can’t go farther than the cable will allow you to go, but you can still use your phone.

This is the approach I take to rest. While resting you can be useful. Let’s look at each of the three rests and I’ll be able to prove it to you.

Physical Rest

This will be especially important if you do a physical job.

Let’s say you are physically tired. Whether it’s a killer session at the gym, a dance class, or you have just come in from a long day of physical work – you’re exhausted.

You flop!

You need your body too make time for rest. But when you flop, do you do nothing?

Well, my thought is that you are ready to move onto another energy – mental or emotional.

These are some activities you can do while you are resting physically:

  • Connect with a loved one
  • Read
  • Learn a language / or musical instrument
  • Journal
  • Do a non – physical hobby, like knitting
  • Do a technology declutter
  • Research something you have been thinking about
  • Invite someone over for coffee

You get the idea. Let’s look at the next one.

Mental Rest

My husband and I do more mental jobs, so this is one we can definitely relate to. We want the brain to switch off and relax mentally for a while. How do you mentally rest?

Is that the time to make time for rest, sit and do nothing?

Well, my thought is that while your brain can have a breather you could do the following:

  • Go for a walk
  • Cook a nice meal
  • Meet up with a close friend for a chat
  • Journal
  • Do a mindful breathing session to connect back with the body
  • Play an easy game
  • Head to the gym
  • Play with a pet
A woman playing with a cat. Part of an article - how to make time for rest when life if busy.

Finally, let’s look at the last one.

Emotional Rest

Do you ever get exhausted emotionally? Maybe the reason you are busy and have no time is because there is something happening in your life that is stressful and emotionally taxing.

Maybe it’s friend or family drama, an effect from social media, or grief. There are many things that can take it out of us.

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WAYS TO SUPPORT OUR EMOTIONAL ENERGY

So we might need to rest emotionally, but we can still do these things:

  • Go for a hike
  • Get organized with plans and lists
  • Go shopping
  • A mindful body scan
  • Join a dance class, or dance alone
  • Get stuck into improving a skill
  • Be a tourist in your own city
  • Clean

Let’ see how we can put it all together and actually make time for rest.

How to Organize Your Time

So we can see that you can move between your different energies throughout the day.

I just want to mention here that this does not mean we don’t need sleep. Sleep is when we rest completely – it is extremely important, and the time that your body can do it’s best restoring and healing.

But during the day, I am an advocate for resting one or two things at a time.

Always remember the importance of rest.

If you are busy and have no time, you need to start noticing your boundaries for each area.

Do you get physically tired after 1 hour of activity or after 5 hours?

When you learn your PERSONAL limits, you will be able to plan your day with a nice variety of activities which will enable you to keep going keep being productive, but not having you getting over tired and burnt out in one area or another.

You might like:

HOW TO ENERGY PLAN YOUR DAY

Summary

Let me give you my day today as an example. I want to clean the whole house, but it’s too much for me all in one go. So I broke it up into hour sections and spread it throughout the day.

In between cleaning, I was able to write this blog post, do a Pinterest schedule, and some personal study.

Later this evening I will flop in front of TV for some light entertainment.

The point is you can make time for rest without it needing to be a big deal.

I hope you found this helpful, please do let me know if you have any insight on the topic in the comments below.

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