Recently we’ve been talking about rest – Did you know there are 7 different ways to be fatigued?
I genuinely believe that rest is the cornerstone of our health and wellbeing. Of course, nutrition, exercise, mindset, and connection are all crucial as well, but they’re much harder to achieve without adequate rest.
So, let’s talk about the Rest Traps – the things we often consider to be “rest” and why they don’t actually work!
1. Holidays
You may have heard me say this before – holidays with kids can often feel like ‘same sh*#, different place’!
Have you actually ever gone away with your family and come back more relaxed? I’m not saying you didn’t have fun and feel more connected to your family after the trip, but did you feel rested? Often you feel you need a break to recover from the holiday (and to catch up with the washing & work that piled up while you were away). Even if you are some kind of unicorn family 
who go away together and all come home feeling rejuvenated and relaxed, it’s still only a week! It’s not enough to sustain you for the other 51 weeks in the year.
2. Reducing obligations and saying “no” more often
Now I’m all about some healthy boundary setting…but cutting back on your kids’ activities and saying ‘no’ to social gatherings might seem like you’re giving yourself more room to rest, but it frequently doesn’t work.
Do you know why? Because you don’t have a plan! The white space can make you feel uncomfortable (because you’re a people-pleasing go-getter 
), which causes you to fill it with something else… or you choose the wrong type of rest to fill it with, such as binge-watching a TV series or decluttering your wardrobe. These things aren’t useless, but if they don’t address the area where you’re deficient, they probably won’t leave you feeling rested.
3. Weekend sleep ins and long day naps
It might make logical sense to catch up on sleep on the weekend if you feel you haven’t had enough through the week, but unfortunately that’s just not how sleep works! Often you wake up from these sleeps feeling groggy and lethargic, because you’ve woken during a deeper stage of your sleep cycle and your body wants to keep sleeping to complete it.
Can you think of any other rest solutions you’ve tried that just haven’t worked for you?
I’ve been enjoying this deep dive into rest so much that I’ve decided to put together a 10 day ‘Reset your Relationship to Rest’ Challenge. I will share more details soon, but if you’re interested, please comment to let me know!