What does rest look like for you?
On (not) being tired and wired
“One of the cherished things in my routine that I had managed to hold on to as a non-negotiable was a weekly Sunday morning run with a friend. One Sunday, as we ended our run with our usual sit-down in a café, out of nowhere I burst into tears. I tried to play it down by joking that I was just tired and emotional. Those tears in front of my friend were a turning point and I knew something had to change. “You need a holiday,” was my friend’s advice as she lent a supportive ear.
I knew that a holiday anytime soon was not possible, but when I got home I did what I could in that moment – I lay down on the floor for twenty minutes. As I lay there, covered in a blanket with soft support under my head and knees, I felt the physical tension release from my body. Something profound happened during that twenty minutes. My perspective shifted. My immediate thought was, ‘I should do this more’.”
Sometimes to experience rest beyond sleep it can mean going on holiday, as my friend had suggested. But what do you do if that’s not an option for you?
The above is an extract from my book, describing something I experienced in 2014. From that day, I decided to practice this yoga posture, savasana – lying down on the floor supported by props – for twenty minutes, every day for a whole year. This is what I called The 365 Savasana Project, which I wrote about at the time in my OM Yoga Magazine column. Almost ten years later I’m still writing about rest.
In 2012, as new yoga teacher I had studied restorative (REST-orative) yoga with Judith Hanson Lasater, where she talked to us about what she had learned directly from her teacher B.K.S. Iyengar (who developed the practice of restorative yoga), lying down in savasana for twenty minutes and why she believed yoga teachers needed to practice restorative yoga. I wasn’t until that day in 2014, lying on my floor, acknowledging my exhaustion that Judith’s words finally landed. With my hectic schedule, putting everyone else’s needs ahead of my own as well as constantly working to try and make ends meet financially, physical rest, especially, was something I had been severely lacking. (Sidenote: I get the irony, for some, of a yoga teacher being burnt out.)
According to Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith there are seven types of rest we all need:
Physical
Mental
Social
Spiritual
Sensory
Emotional
Creative
There’s even a free quiz you can take via Dr. Walton’s website to identify your personal rest deficits. While I’m actually not too bad in the other areas, physical rest has been the one I know I need to be particularly intentional about, which is why restorative yoga has become such a big part of my life.
I know that if I’m not rested, I lack clarity of thought and I cannot show up in the world as my best self for me or anyone else.
Restorative yoga is a non-negotiable for me in a world that wants us to keep going no matter what.
For you, it may be something else. What’s important is knowing or, if you don’t yet know, allowing space to work out what rest looks like for you in your life.
As I write in Rest + Calm, “Imagine what the world would look like if we were all well-rested?”
If you’ve read this far and are curious as to what this restorative yoga stuff is all about, I invite you to join me online or in-person to experience it for yourself:
Online:
Restorative Yoga livestream on Tuesdays 8-9pm BST or on-demand at Mindwalk Yoga. As well as these 60-minute classes there are shorter practices available on the Mindwalk Yoga app with me and the other fantastic Mindwalk Yoga teachers.
In-person in London:
The Rest Sessions on Saturday 20th May at Yoga Point in Brixton. These are a culmination of my teaching and practice to date and began online in 2020 as a response to the pandemic. Full details here.
Or, Rest + Restore 7-8.30pm on the second Friday of each month at Embody Wellness in Vauxhall. Find full details and book your place on the Embody ‘Workshops’ page here.
Over to you:
Last week I saw a wonderful reflection shared by Tracee Stanley, teacher and author of Radiant Rest, who I had the good fortune to study with in 2020. I’m sharing Tracee’s enquiry here for you to consider:
What are three things in your life that would change if you were well rested?
Let me know in the comments if you feel called to share.
Love this, and so relate to the anecdote in the beginning. It is so difficult yet so essential to prioritize rest. If we don’t choose when to rest, our bodies choose a time for us!