Rest is Essential. This isn’t a Radical Idea.
Do you find time to truly rest every day? Do you take time where you are genuinely resting your body and mind? Do you even understand what rest is?!!
Even if you said ‘yes’ to all of these questions - keep reading! Because rest is so important and so crucial. It’s an essential aspect of the human experience. Whether you are feeling fine, or whether you have a chronic health condition, chronic fatigue or are burnt out by work, parenting, or what life has thrown at you - you will need some more rest. Capitalism and society has taught us to keep pushing and pushing, that you are only ‘successful’ if you are striving. To ignore what your body is telling you, and ‘push through’. That’s what I was taught to do, and it was a very rude awakening for me when I contracted Covid, developed Long Covid with Chronic Fatigue and was forced to just stop.
During my own chronic fatigue journey, I was frequently housebound or bedbound by fatigue. My body wouldn’t work how I was used to it doing before that time, and it took a long time for me to work out what was happening. Sleep was unrefreshing, I would wake up exhausted, force myself to get up to take care of my daughter, do what I can and then crash out by 2-3pm each day. What I didn’t know right away was this ‘pushing through’ was adding to my chronic illness, and that my body would never recover without giving it what it was begging for: rest. I was in a classic boom-bust cycle.
What helped me the most was learning about ‘Radical Rest’ and implementing genuine pacing into my life. A big eye-opener for me was learning that not only can exertion be physical, I could be exerting myself emotionally and mentally as well. That hamster-run loop of constant thinking and worrying? Exertion! Those denser emotional loops of sadness, grief and despair? Also, a form of exertion. My daily crashes were partially due to physical activity, sure, but I was crashing out from fatigue just as much due to mental and emotional energetic loads.
‘Radical Rest’ is the technique where you stop everything and take some time out to fully rest your body and mind. When I commited to a period of radical rest, multiple times a day for pacing, that was when I began to move the needle towards greater levels of rest, and of wellness. The body cannot heal itself when you are leaving no energy left over for its healing. And your mental and emotional bodies also deserve and need that healing time as well. I decided to pace myself by inserting 10-15 minutes of rest every two hours, as a pacing method for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome / Long Covid. I go into much more detail about what I did and how it helped me in my Long Covid recovery in this podcast episode.
Additionally, I think that the art of ‘Radical Rest’ opens your eyes to what rest actually isn’t. You may think that watching the tv or a film, or scrolling through social media or the news is resting and restful - but I’m here to inform you that it actually isn’t! Especially with an energy-limiting illness, all of these things can actually deplete you further. Not to say that everything can deplete energy - there are certain activities such as restorative yoga or guided meditation that can actually restore energy. More about those on a later post.
Now, I know it’s all very well me just saying these things, but let’s take a moment to experience and do it for yourself. Let me show you what I mean, by taking 10-15 minutes out of whatever it is you are doing, to enjoy a moment of complete rest. You deserve rest. Rest is essential. So please, whether seated or lying down, put your phone on silent, barracade your door if needed, then gently close your eyes and listen to this relaxation track:
Quick Body Scan Relaxation Technique
And if this felt good and you are interested in exploring ways to rest further with me, then I invite you to consider entering my Sanctuary Space, a carefully designed yoga and meditation space designed for exactly this purpose. And if you are open to consider working with me more closely, I have a Wellness Mentorship Programme to support you.
— Sarah Evans
