Ask any physician and they will tell you rest is essential for
physical health. When the body is deprived of sleep, it is
unable to rebuild and recharge itself adequately. Your body
requires rest.
Ask any athlete and they will tell you rest is essential for
physical training. Rest is needed for muscles to repair
themselves and prevent injury. This is true whether you run
marathons, pitch baseballs, or climb rocks. Your muscles
require rest.
Ask many of yesterday’s philosophers and they will tell you
rest is essential for the mind. Leonardo da Vinci said,
“Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for
when you come back to your work your judgment will be
surer.” And Ovid, the Roman poet, said, “Take rest; a field
that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” Your mind requires
rest.
Ask most religious leaders and they will tell you rest is
essential for the soul. Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity,
Islam, Baha’i, and Wiccan (among others) teach the
importance of setting aside a period of time for rest. Your
soul requires rest.
Ask many corporate leaders and they will tell you that rest
is essential for productivity. Forbes magazine recently
wrote, “You can only work so hard and do so much in a
day.
Everybody needs to rest and recharge.” Your
productivity requires rest.
Physicians, athletes, philosophers, poets, religious leaders,
and corporate leaders all tell us the same thing: take time
to rest. It is absolutely essential for a balanced, healthy life.
Yet, when you ask people in today’s frenzied culture if they
intentionally set aside time for rest, most will tell you they
are too busy. Even fewer would say they set aside any
concentrated time (12-24 hours) for rest. There are just too
many things to get done, too many demands, too many
responsibilities, too many bills, and too much urgency.
Nobody can afford to waste time resting in today’s results-
oriented world.
Healthier body.
We each get one life and one body to
live it in. Therefore, we eat healthy, we exercise, and
we watch our bad habits. But then we allow our
schedules to fill up from morning to evening. Rest is
as essential to our physical health as the water we
drink and the air we breathe.
Less stress. Stress is the perception that the
situations we are facing are greater than the resources
we have to deal with them—resources such as time,
energy, ability, and help from others. Concentrated
rest confronts stress in two ways. First, it reduces the
demands of the situation. We have no demands on us
as long as we have the ability to mentally let go of
unfinished tasks. Secondly, rest reduces stress by
increasing our resources, particularly energy.
Deeper relationships.
A day set aside each week for
rest allows relationships with people to deepen and
be strengthened. When we aren’t rushing off to work
or soccer practice, we are able to enjoy each other’s
company and a healthy conversation. And long talks
prove to be far more effective in building community
than short ones on the ride to the mall.
Opportunity for reflection. Sometimes it is hard to
see the forest through the trees. It is even more
difficult to see the forest when we are running through
the trees. Concentrated rest allows us to take a step
back, to evaluate our lives, to identify our values, and
determine if our life is being lived for them.
Balance.
Taking one day of your week and dedicating
it to rest will force you to have an identity outside of
your occupation. It will foster relationships outside of
your fellow employees. It will foster activities and
hobbies outside work. It will give life and identity
outside of your Monday-Friday occupation. Rather
than defining your life by what you do, you can begin
to define it by who you are.
Increased production.
Just like resting physical
muscles allows them opportunity to rejuvenate which
leads to greater physical success, providing our minds
with rest provides it opportunity to refocus and rejuvenate.
More work is not better work. Smarter
work is better work.
Reserve for life’s emergencies. Crisis hits everyone.
Nobody who is alive is immune from the trials of life.
By starting the discipline today of concentrated rest,
you will build up reserves for when the unexpected
emergencies of life strike and rest is no longer an
option.