Seriously, Rest is The Best Medicine for Your Mental Health

Oftentimes when we think of rest, we instinctively associate it with ceasing all physical activity. Historically, that association was true. From the Agricultural Revolution approximately 10,000 years ago until the birth of our current Knowledge Economy in 1996, rest was mainly an opportunity to take a break from blue-collar or agricultural work.

However, in 21st-century America, the vast majority of labor is part of the Knowledge Economy, where most of our contributions come from intellectual instead of physical labor. For millions of Americans, work is no longer intense manual labor in a factory or working the ground on a farm. Work is primarily done on a computer, requires problem-solving, and demands us to use our mental capacities in processing through ever-changing and complex scenarios. As a result, our rest needs to consider our mental health as much as our physical health.

It's not enough to binge-watch Hulu or Netflix for two days and call it "rest." We live in a time where we need to emphasize our overall health by focusing on holistic activities that rejuvenate our minds and bodies. For some, this may sound like a bunch of hippie nonsense, but the fact is the leading causes of mental illness in the United States are anxiety and stress.

A tool that has helped me over the years to discover (and re-discover) where I find rest is called “fills and drains.” The name of the tool and its application is simple enough. The premise is we all do things that either fill or drain us. The goal during rest is to identify and focus on filling activities.

Fills

When thinking through both fills and drains, it's important to process through your entire self. This includes spiritual, emotional, physical, and relational fills and drains.

Regarding spiritual fills, I recommend starting by picking your top 3 activities that spiritually fill you the most. Every week on a day off, choose 1 or 2 of those activities and decide ahead of time to dedicate a block of time to doing them. Whether that's journaling, maybe a yoga class, prayer, or a meditative walk, whatever it is, block out some time to recharge spiritually.

Once you’ve identified your top 3 restful spiritual activities and have scheduled a block time to practice them, take time to do the same for your emotional, physical, and relational health.

Some examples of activities that promote emotional health are:

• Exercising (this is also a physical activity)
• Listening to music (maybe a little Enya for your ear hole?)
• Using meditation apps like Calm to slow your mind down. I bought a lifetime subscription a few years ago, and it's been one of the best purchases of my life.
• Or reading a book just for fun. My wife has LOVED A Court of Thorns series by Sarah J. Maas

***Pro-tip***When processing through fills, consider activities you may not want to do at the moment, and you know if you do, you’ll feel rested and rejuvenated on the back end.

Something for the Introverts…and Extroverts

For some introverted people (like me!) relational rest means time alone with our thoughts, which is great! Introverts need time alone; please give us our alone time!

That’s how we recharge and prepare for those terrifying things called conversations. I'm just kidding...But seriously, they're scary.

What can also be especially restful for introverts from a relational perspective is getting together with 1-2 close relationships and grabbing a cup of coffee (or tea). Initially, the idea will feel like our rest is being hijacked, but by the end of our time with others, we feel refreshed by the quality time spent with people we genuinely care about.

Extroverts need to find time to put their phone on airplane mode, get off social media, and sit alone with their thoughts for a bit. The reward for contemplating and reflecting (emotional rest) can be throwing the biggest party to make up for the time alone.

After creating your list of fills spiritually, emotionally, physically, and relationally, decide when you will do them. Some people are free to do activities in all four buckets every week; others alternate between two areas one week and two areas the next. Crazy; some people even focus on one area a week and alternate weekly. There are numerous ways you can engage in life-giving activities that fill you during your time of rest. There is no right or wrong way to rest apart from neglecting to rest.

Drains

Drains are like eating Taco Bell. It seemed like a good idea at first, but after 45 minutes you’re only left with heartburn and regret. The dangerous thing about drains is that they are so enticing on the front end.

Let’s take an emotional activity as an example. Say you had an emotionally harder-than-normal week at work. This can look like someone you were trying to care for blowing up on you or receiving your care but being completely ungrateful for it. Whatever the cause, you’re emotionally exhausted. What do most people do once they’ve become emotionally exhausted? We decide we’ve had enough with people, and we park our asses on the couch and binge-watch Ted Lasso, have an impromptu Game of Thrones marathon, or decide to invite our friends Ben & Jerry over and blow through the entire series of All of Us Are Dead.

At the moment, doesn’t that sound good? Yes! But when you’re stuck like velcro to the couch at the end of the weekend, do you feel rested and emotionally restored? No!

That’s the problem with drains; they drain you. What’s worse is we tend not to realize how draining these activities are until we’ve wasted all our rest time on drains. So instead of being rejuvenated, we start the next week full of guilt and shame and feeling worse.

To avoid what has been lovingly entitled the death loop of drains, be proactive in identifying the activities that drain instead of fill you. Think again through spiritual, emotional, physical, and relational grids and identify the top offenders that rob you of rest. In the same way, you plan ahead to determine when you’ll do filling activities; you also need to avoid draining activities like the plague.

Creating Margin for Regular Rest

I’ve talked a lot about thinking, planning, block scheduling, restful activities, binge-watching, etc... Some of you may think, “It sounds like hard work trying to rest!” And in one sense, that’s true. Because most people don't rest well, making the necessary adjustments to rest, especially resting our minds, initially feels like work. The good news is over time; it becomes a natural rhythm of our lives.

We create space to plan our times of rest by creating a margin. Margin is the time and space we create to rest and rejuvenate. In our 21st-century digital lives, something is vying for our time 24 hours a day. If we don’t decide where our time will go, people, advertisers, or apps are happy to make that decision for us.

Intentional rest that fills our soul, mind, and body requires self-discipline. John Maxwell once said,

“anything worth doing is uphill”

The sentiment is true for rest too. In the same way, we prioritize a thousand different activities in our lives; we have to prioritize regular rest. Without it, we’ll survive for a while, but eventually, we will burn out. You can't control everything, so focus on what you can control, prioritize your rest, and enjoy the goodness and benefits of rejuvenating spiritually, emotionally, physically, and relationally.