How to rest?

1: REPOSE, SLEEP specifically : a bodily state characterized by minimal functional and metabolic activities

2a: freedom from activity or labor

b: a state of motionlessness or inactivity

c: the repose of death

3: a place for resting or lodging

4: peace of mind or spirit

5a(1): a rhythmic silence in music

(2): a character representing such a silence

b: a brief pause in reading

6: something used for support

Just like going to the gym, your muscles need to rest and regrow. Rest is an important part of elite athletes schedule.

If you are working at peak performance you need down time to rest. While resting you can also process some of the information and come up with new ideas. It makes you more efficient for when you get back to work.

I’ve often found that OK I can’t really work much harder than I am because there are only 24 hours in a day, and as a human I have biological limitations, there is only so much that I can do., so I just have to be working smarter and / or using leverage in some way to achieve more, either by using capital as leverage, hiring smarter people, or doing things more intelligently or having a superior strategy, probably a combination of those things.

So it’s really important to be thinking about this stuff. It’s not about working hard, there are some people who work so hard but they never progress, you can be doing something that is pointless and you will never get anywhere if someone uses a tech solution to solve that problem and beats you.

If you can rest well, then you can get back into the game faster with better performance. You can often find that you are more efficient when you rest and that you don’t need to work so much or spend so much energy. There is the 80:20 rule, often 80% of your productivity is done in 20% of the time. Everyone can be finding ways to be working more efficiently.

Arianna Huffington was overworking before and had some kind of breakdown. So she prioritised sleep. She wrote a book about it: Thrive.

If you don’t rest then you can burn out and be unable to function which can take you longer to get back in. So this is extremely important.

We are quite complicated and have many different needs:
– Physical rest – resting the body.
– Mental rest – the mind
– Social rest
– Creative rest
– Computer rest – not using machines and having a detox
– Emotional rest
– Sensory rest

Here is an article about 7 types of rest.

We also need novelty. Social interactions

So how do you rest?

– Sleep
– Fun
– Food
– Exploring
– Listen to your body. What kind of rest do you need?
– Holidays
– Time off

Sleep

Sleep is one of the most important parts of rest. But how do you sleep well? I don’t think people really understand that much about sleep but it’s important. I have slept very well last night and feel great, the last few nights I had less sleep and felt less well rested.

For me some useful ways to improve sleep are:
– To exercise in the day
– To eat well
– To have a warm shower before bed
– To sleep and wake at the same time each day – I no longer need an alarm clock
– Meditating
– Turn off machines 1-2 hours before bed

Holidays / Trips

It is also important to take time out and have a different routine.  A new location can free you from your routine and habits and refresh you, and also separate you from the pressures. After the holiday you can come back with a fresh and new perspective able to make changes.

Fun

It’s also important to have fun and do new and cool stuff that gives you excitement.

What’s my schedule? 

Right now my schedule is to sleep 7-8 hours from 10-6am, I will do intermittent fasting and I’m the most efficient in the morning from 6am-1pm and I’ll usually schedule this for productive creative work where I’m getting stuff done. And then I’ll have my first meal at 1pm, and then fill the afternoon with meetings where I’m a bit less efficient and can relax a bit more. I’ll then also have a day off on the weekend, either Saturday or Sunday.

Theres a lot more to learn about rest. I’ve got a meeting now, so I’ll come back to this article later.