Rest

Ah, there is nothing better, especially after a hard day of work, having a day off where you literally don’t do anything besides what your body longs for. Which is absolutely Nothing.

Which is, coincidentally, the definition of rest. It becomes a little nuanced when we dive a bit deeper, but that’s the gist of it.

What is Rest?

Rest is all action or non-action that has the aim to regenerate your body. Sleep plays huge role in it. Many people misunderstand Sleep as the entire Rest process but it’s not because your body regenerates during the day as well, just not as efficiently.

Meaning, when you stress your body, you not only plan a good night sleep, but also entire non-work days as well in order to recover from the accumulated stress. What form could it take? Depends on you.

Do you like to read books?

Do you like to watch movies?

Do you like doing Yoga?

Or, like most people on this planet, lay on the beach and sip piña colada?

The main goal here is to relax.

Some of you are highly productive citizens and might be wondering.

“But I have million things to do! There is no time to relax.”

“I have a business and a family to run! I will relax later.”

“I am a Paladin in World of Warcraft and need to raid x amount of dungeons each day!”

Importance of Rest

To address all your arguments, I will tell you a story.

In my early 20s, I found my first obsession in my life, which is Martial Arts. I was obsessed, read everything I could get my hands on, trained 6 days a week to such a degree that I barely could remember actually closing my eyes and start sleeping. Like falling into a dark, empty barrel of nothingness.

I advanced like a Rocket. After 1.5 years of training, all my progress started to slow down and hit a wall. I was wondering as to why. I trained really hard, ate proper stuff and was motivated. One day of rest a week is enough, right?

Or so I thought. Eventually it came to a point where I was frustrated by the lack of progress and, simply put, constant suffering. I felt weak, extremely drained and broken. So, in pure frustration, I just took a 2 week pause from everything. Just like that.

First few days I just slept and played games, doing nothing else. On about the 5^th day, I felt like my mind was clearing up somehow. I felt clarity for the first time in many, many months.

So, I kept going through week 2 and at some point, I looked in the mirror and wondered how I came to such a state. I was so overworked and stressed. Pure Tunnel Vision if I ever could define one.

With reclaimed Clarity for the first time in a long time, I sat down and started reevaluating everything. Training, its methods, health, and so on and came to the conclusion that my lack of progress was truly because I didn’t take the Rest my body needed.

In other words, my dear reader, Rest is one of the 3 core factors of improvement, which are:

1. Incentive (work / damage done)
2. Food intake (fuel)
3. Rest

All of those are important for your progress, whatever field you are in. And that’s what this blog is all about. Improving you in all aspects, as best as possible.

Body Recovery Methods

Now, lets define Rest further. There are two ways to do so: Active and Non-Active Rest recovery methods.

Active – Any activity that aims to recover the body with low to mid effort exercises. The main goal is Recovering, but also detoxing your entire being from byproducts like stress hormone, negative thoughts and the mental weight of intensive and continuous work. Examples:

In Powerlifting taking a week of Active Rest by lowering the volume or/and weight of the load, essentially decreasing the intensity.

In Cycling, instead of going for another ride, Athletes usually go for another Sport completely, like swimming or taking a good walk.

In book writing, famous writers usually write for 4-8 hours straight until their brain uses up all energy and then they usually go for a walk or do some light sport activity.

Non-Active Rest – This one is very simple and one that you know all too well, simply doing nothing. Chill at the beach, at the bar, having picnic with friends and family. The point is to let everything go and soak in all the positive energy that you can get from every possible source, letting your body, mind and soul regenerate.

One of the core methods of Recovery is actually a Non-Active one. You guessed it, its Sleep! Not only does it recover your Muscle Tissue and Organs in record time, but also is responsible for the Brain Function, Cognitive Abilities, Emotional Well-Being and Detoxification of the body. But more on that in the next article.

Wrapping Up

Thats it for today. Next, we will take a deep dive in Sleep, Relaxing techniques and I will even make an entire article excusing your laziness laying on the beach under the hot sun! So, stay tuned.

If you want updates on the articles, use the subscription field on the top right column. See you in the next article!

PEACE!