7 different kinds of rest

Our bodies need more than sleep.

The modern quip “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” seems to be fading away.

More research and more people are trumpeting how essential a good night’s sleep is to our health. Podcast episodes on the importance of asleep abound; CEOs talk about getting 8 hours of sleep as a high priority; the risks related to the lack of sleep for both your wellness and your safety (car accidents, for one) are taken more seriously.

Sleep — we all need it, ideally 8 hours! It’s important! It’s critical for good health! Got the message. Check, check, check. (That doesn’t mean we are actually putting away our screens early and getting deep, quality sleep, but that’s another story. We at least know we should.)

There are other types of rest, though, which are also important.

“Sleep and rest are not the same thing, although many of us incorrectly confuse the two,” says Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, a rest advocate and author of Sacred Rest.

This is why we might get plenty of sleep, but still drag through our days and feel tired and weary.

“That was my own story,” relates Dr. Dalton-Smith.

“I’m an internal medicine physician, Board Certified a few times. I’ve been practicing medicine for more than 20 years and am well aware of the need for good quality sleep. I was making a deliberate point of getting seven, eight, nine, sometimes 10 hours a night, trying to find that magic number that would allow me to wake up feeling refreshed. Despite getting excellent sleep, I was still waking up tired.

“The majority of the patients I work with and the majority of the patients that I meet have a rest deficit that they are not aware of simply because they do not realize that there are different types of rest. So many people count rest as a big bucket. A cessation of activity. Anything that is not their normal work they call rest. You’ll hear from someone, “I’m going on vacation to rest.” What they really mean is that they are going to go to a fun location and do fun work. They’re not effectively resting, they’re doing a lot of fun activities that usually don’t leave them feeling restored but rather leave them feeling more tired when they get home.

“Many of these activities of rest that I am going to describe are just this: restorative activities. That is the mindset shift that many people have to make: rest should be restorative. Just stopping is not always restorative. Sometimes something has to be done to pour back into that area where you are being depleted.”

In her book Sacred Rest, Dr. Dalton-Smith explains that there are 7 kinds of rest:

• Physical rest, both passive (sleep) and active (yoga, massage therapy, things that help with the body’s circulation and flexibility)

• Mental rest

• Sensory rest

• Creative rest

• Emotional rest

• Social rest

• Spiritual rest

Dr. Dalton-Smith explains the 7 types of rest in this TED Ideas article.

The lockdown periods of the early pandemic are good examples of the need for all kinds of rest. Some of us might have been sleeping more. Without a hectic commute or the cacophony of errands, we might have had more sensory rest.

But we had lost much of contact with other people. We were missing our social rest.

Social rest doesn’t mean all time with other people — it’s a specific type of connection with certain people. I imagine all of us have felt the difference between spending time with people and feeling rejuvenated and refreshed and feeling drained and exhausted.

Our world tends to lump all social activity together, but we know in our body when time with others is truly restorative or not.

Once, many years ago, a friend and I had planned a weekend to hang out. It was a rarity, as we both had small sons and lived far apart. Our plan was to meet in the middle for a much-anticipated weekend of friend time.

But as the weekend neared, I got quite sick with a partial bowel obstruction. I ended up in the hospital nearly an hour away from home.

I despaired: Not only was I in agony, but I would miss this rare mini vacation with a beloved friend. It was awful.

But she didn’t miss a beat. She decided, to my amazement, that she would simply drive all the way to me in New York and book a hotel near the hospital. I wasn’t going anywhere. Yes, I could have visitors.

And so, she appeared in my hospital room, and for two days, she sat by my hospital bed, and we talked and laughed and talked some more. We had so missed our long conversations. We weren’t distracted by shopping or a restaurant menu or anything but just probing our lives, overturning thoughts together, reminiscing, delving into deep and overlooked areas.

I remember acutely sitting up in the hospital bed, in that terrible hospital gown that leaves you feeling like less than a person, hooked up to an IV pole, the sounds of beeps up and down the hall, with my friend in a chair right there, and feeling …. happy. So happy.

Grateful. Restored. Energized.

Until I read about the 7 different kinds of rest, I hadn’t realized how those particular days were a dose of much-needed social rest, how much my body benefited from her generous visit.

It was the kind of rest I used to get plenty of, as a 20-something woman with lots of friend time, but a kind of rest that nearly disappeared entirely when I was a working mom of a little guy. Whew. Honestly, it’s still hard to get that kind of rest right now, and when I do have a long coffee chat or walk with a friend, it feels refreshing. A relief. A panacea.

Emotional rest is in a similar, overlooked space.

Dr. Dalton-Smith defines emotional rest as “having the time and space to freely express your feelings and cut back on people pleasing.”

Think of the effort we all put into different spaces, regulating our emotions, responding politely, thinking about how others are feeling and what response would be well received. It can be exhausting.

But when we are in a supportive space where we can share all our emotions, it’s a form of rest. A conversation with a close friend or partner, or a session with a therapist, can be emotional rest.

When I finally left the hospital, many years ago, I felt so much better. Not just because of the painkillers and drugs, and the fact that a bowel obstruction had thankfully resolved, but because I was buoyed by friend time. It was like an emergency infusion of social and emotional rest that I hadn’t realized I needed so acutely.

I wonder which forms of rest resonate with you. Which ones make you think — OH, yes. Yes. That’s what I’ve been missing.

I wonder if you can schedule in that kind of rest this week.

I’ll see you back here on Wednesday. I hope you have a restful week ahead.

To our journeys and healthier days ahead,

Brianne