Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me.
Sock it to me, indeed.
Recently, I got a nice little refresher course on what happens when I do exactly what I know in my gut doesn’t work: push through day after day without let-up, no matter how exhausted I am, no matter how tense, or overwhelmed, or frightening, at least to my husband, I might be.
Of course, I came down with bronchitis.
No, no, I said, trying to wave it off like an unwanted tray of hors d’oeuvres. I have THINGS to do. I have clients and meetings. I have blog posts to write. I have carpets to be cleaned and gifts to buy. I have absolutely no time for getting sick.
Bronchitis snorted its derision at me. Its breath was foul.
So I caved, just a little. I stayed home and tried to convince myself I was taking it easy because I’d cancelled my client sessions and didn’t leave the house. Never mind that I was spending all my time in front of the computer working and shopping for holiday gifts. I was practicing good self-care!
I wasn’t resting; I was resisting. I often talk to my clients about the folly of trying with all one’s might to paddle upstream. The current will always be stronger than you are. You are going to end up downstream one way or the other. You get to choose only whether you will arrive well-rested, refreshed, and ready for what’s next, or battered, bloody, and too disoriented to stand.
Ironically, it’s when we’re hurting most, when things feel like they’re falling apart (we’re getting a sore throat, we have a relationship on the rocks, we’ve gotten bad news, our kid is in trouble at school), that we push ourselves to work harder, to check more items off the to-do list, and to be productive “at all costs.”
Those “costs,” however, can be high. The body will fight to heal itself, and your body will win, every time. When your body has had enough, it will say so, and it may say so at the worst possible time for you. By incorporating rest into your daily routines, you give your body the space to refresh itself. You also give yourself a chance to restore your natural energy and exuberance, and you lessen the likelihood of a crash.
Sleep—not the only but perhaps the most important aspect of resting—is critical to our physical and emotional survival. There’s actually a lot going on while you’re asleep—there are just as many neurons firing in your brain as when you’re awake, and your brain is working on processing complex stimuli to help you make decisions when you wake up. (That’s probably where the phrase “sleep on it” comes from.)
But if you don’t sleep, you never give your brain a chance to do this critical work, unfettered by your nagging worries about your muffin top or where you put last year’s gift wrap. You also deprive your brain of the time for critical maintenance. The brain is a meticulous housekeeper, and it actually spends the time you’re sleeping flushing out toxic molecules that researchers believe lead to Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. The brain also saves and cements new information into its architecture, which is probably the reason why it is never a good idea to pull an all-nighter. But try to explain that to a teenager whose brain isn’t fully developed—or an overworked parent trying to meet a deadline.
When I finally realized that sitting and working at my computer wasn’t giving me the rest my body and brain were demanding, I finally stopped resisting and started allowing. I slobbed around. I coughed into a million tissues. I slept, deeply.
And within that period of rest, I found myself and I got my mojo back.
During this holiday season, if you find yourself sick, or nothing seems to be working, or you’re exhausted by expending massive amounts of energy cooking, shopping, and entertaining, please, though it feels counter-intuitive, stop. The world won’t come to a standstill just because you do. Lie back in that boat, and let yourself drift downstream for a while.
Rest. It’s a surprisingly rejuvenating thing!