In a recent email I talked about active rest, where we actively change what we are doing to rest the parts of ourselves and our brain that are over worked and overwhelmed.
It's perfect for those of you that struggle to just stop, but it does take a bit of thought, if you stare at a computer all day, in order to rest the parts of you that are overworked means you need to rest the 'staring at a computer' parts of you, so monging on the sofa scrolling your phone isn't exactly restful!
Active rest is switching from one kind of activity to a totally different one, or in my case this weekend, taking myself out of 'multi-tasking' mum mode and doing something totally different that required one point of focus and no multi thinking.
In order to rest our selves and re-charge we need to understand what parts of us are tired. This may sound simple and also complicated, it's easy just to feel exhausted and so no really understand what parts of us are really tired. Unless you've been on a long run, a marathon walk, a day on the slopes or had a ridiculously physical day, most of us aren't physically tired, we may feel it, but logic holds that we haven't done enough to need to do nothing with our body.
Most of us are mentally exhausted, emotionally overwhelmed and physically under used. Most of us sit for long periods of time using our mind, or spend the day juggling tasks over exerting the parts of the brain that this multi tasking requires, leaving us feeling exhausted, but we are actually mentally fatigued.
Once we understand that we can pick a change of activity that will allow those parts to rest.
I spent all of Sunday sitting judging cross country jumping, I had my first day away from olive since she was born, so I was able for the first time to totally switch the 'where's Olive' part of my brain off for a decent length of time as I knew she was Ok, and I was able to just focus on one simple task, press the stop watch, record the time, tell control the result, rinse and repeat.
As I drove away from my day I had the feeling of being restored, I hadn't had to organise anything once the day had begun, I had turned up, been told my directions, done my thing and come home. It was BLISS!!!!!
Trying something new, doing something different, can be just as much as a rest as going to a spa or laying next to a pool, in fact for some it can be more relaxing as it doesn't allow the monkey brain to get involved, there's no chance to over think and so your mind does unwind.
Short bursts of daily chores can do the same, break up your day with simple tasks that require no screen time, not much thought but just a little focus and you can find that your overall battery is a little fuller by the end of the day than it would normally be.
Megs xx
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