Picture this: you come home from work and you’re exhausted. Your brain and body are crying out for rest. So, you plop down on the couch and scroll on your phone, or maybe you binge that new dramady everyone is talking about. Yet, by the time you go to bed, you’re still feeling drained. You figure maybe you need more rest, so you spend your weekend lounging too, but Monday rolls around and you somehow feel worse. Maybe others tell you to go to the gym to get energized or hit the town to unwind, and while these things may help some of the time, by and large you still feel bogged down.
Sound familiar?
If you often feel like you are stuck in a cycle of tireless tiredness, you’re not alone. It can feel discouraging or even frustrating to invest time into resting and find that it’s not paying off. So, what gives? Is the answer more rest? Less? Your problem likely has less to do with the amount of rest you are getting and more to do with whether you are getting effective rest. Truly taking a break isn’t just about the amount of time you spend away from your work. A key component that we often neglect is deciding what kind of break to take.
Frameworks for Understanding Effective Rest
Framework One: The Window of Tolerance
To understand effective rest, we must first understand stress. How many times have you been told that stress is bad for your health, your career, and your relationships? Chances are, more times than you can count. When we talk about managing stress, we often talk about slowing down, stepping back, or seeking distractions. The truth is, this reductive approach ignores the importance of a balanced nervous system.
The window of tolerance is a model for understanding how stress responses manifest as hyperarousal and hypoarousal in the body. When we are in a hyperaroused state, our bodies respond to stress with heightened emotions, nervous energy, and impulsivity. Hypoarousal is the opposite. In a state of hypoarousal, stress puts our bodies into shutdown mode. We become emotionally numb, physically lethargic, and functionally checked out.
Between these two states is the window of tolerance, where we feel emotionally regulated, able to process information, and equipped to face problems head-on. Every individual’s window of tolerance is different, and yours may even look different day to day or moment to moment. Recognising not just when you are stressed, but what kind of stress response you are experiencing, is the first step to determining what kind of rest you need.
Framework Two: Active vs Passive Recovery
Although this is a framework rooted in physical therapy, we can extrapolate many of the core principles when looking at the body and mind as a holistic system. After an intense workout or an injury, recovery time is crucial to healing. This framework looks at two distinct kinds of recovery and weighs their different benefits in different situations.
Passive recovery is the archetypal kind of rest. This is when you halt activity and limit energy expenditure. Active recovery, on the other hand, involves swapping to a different kind of activity. This kind of recovery is about staying active but making alterations to promote healing and prevent further damage.
These different kinds of recovery are best suited for different situations. In the world of sports medicine, a broken bone will require much more passive recovery, while a muscle cramp will benefit more from active recovery. When applying this mentality to the idea of effective rest, we can build upon our window of tolerance framework.
When you’re in a hyperaroused state, passive forms of rest and recovery can help slow racing thoughts, settle strong emotions, and bring you back down into your window of tolerance. Conversely, active forms of rest and recovery can help interrupt the body’s freeze response and snap you out of a hypoaroused state, lifting you up into your window of tolerance again. Of course, sometimes the opposite is true. Sometimes you need to burn off that anxious energy, or you feel like you have no energy because your body needs sleep.
Chances are, your state of arousal and your recovery style won’t always align in the same ways every time. You will discover your own unique patterns and trends when it comes to which situations require passive recovery and which require active recovery. These frameworks come together so you can use your understanding of arousal states as a benchmark for testing different recovery styles and assessing which strategies are most effective for bringing you back within your window of tolerance.
Framework Three: 7 Categories for Assessing Personal Wellness
With our first two frameworks covered, we are equipped to recognize how our bodies are reacting to stress and, by extension, whether active or passive recovery is most likely to be effective. The last thing to consider is what area of your life is the source of your stress, so that you be specific with your active and passive recovery activities.
Think of it this way: if you pulled a muscle in your leg, getting a shoulder massage isn’t going to help much. Likewise, if you are stressed because of sensory overload, going to a concert likely isn’t the best way to recharge. Understanding what aspect of your personal life needs attention is the final step to achieving effective rest.
In her book Sacred Rest, Dr Saundra Dalton-Smith outlines her “7 Types of Rest Framework™”. She looks at seven areas of individual wellbeing and their corresponding types of rest:
- Physical
- Mental (also called intellectual)
- Emotional
- Spiritual (also called fulfillment)
- Social
- Creative
- Sensory
Putting It All Together
If you’re thinking that applying three different frameworks is a lot of work to put into resting, worry not! Applying these concepts is much easier than it seems. It all boils down to three simple questions to ask yourself:
- Am I hyperaroused or hypoaroused?
- Does this situation call for passive or active recovery?
- What area of my wellbeing is suffering?
We’ve put together a reference sheet to help you start applying these frameworks to your own life. As you practice effective resting (because yes, even rest requires practice), you will learn more about your unique responses to stress and which strategies help you feel truly recharged.
Works Consulted:
The window of tolerance (for stress) – Workplace Strategies for Mental Health
How to Recognize Your Window of Tolerance — Mind My Peelings
Overstimulated or Understimulated? How to Tell the Difference and What to Do About It
Why You NEED To Know About Active vs. Passive Recovery – The Mindset Consultancy
Active vs Passive Recovery? Why You Need Both! – MINTBIOLOGY