Published March 21, 2022

The Beauty of Rest

Fight-Flight To Rest-Repair

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Summary: In her reflection on relaxation, the author admits to neglecting it after her blood pressure normalised. Recognising the historical significance of rest in healing, she aims to reintroduce relaxation into her daily routine. Despite feeling guilty, she acknowledges the necessity of rest for transitioning her body from fight-flight to rest-repair for her healing journey.

I’m calling myself out! You see, when I wrote my post on ‘High Blood Pressure’, I said that I was going to start resting properly. I promise I did start doing that. I was doing my good solid 30 minutes of re-lax-ation. But I then found out my blood pressure was back to normal so the rest stopped too. But shouldn’t I still be doing this? Don’t my mind and body deserve this? Don’t we all deserve this, sick or not?!

Relaxation In Ancient Times

In Ancient Greece, an important part of a healing journey was the act of leaving your normal environment in order to seek out a sanctuary for rest and recuperation. Similarly, in Victorian times, it was considered standard practice to spend time by the sea or in a spa or bath house to restore oneself. What has happened to this today? Life today is too focused on being rushed and hurried, being productive and conquering to-do lists.

I am choosing to take a quarter-turn (perhaps more!) away from my to-do list. I’m starting to choose to sit in the sun (topping up my Vitamin D as I do so) or read a few more pages of that novel.

The Need For Rest

In today’s particularly hurried and harried world, rest needs more prioritisation. Adequate rest enables your body to switch from a state of fight-and-flight to rest and repair. It signals to your body that it is safe and satiated, that nothing externally needs to be done so work on maintaining and healing your internal systems can take place. Thus, for healing any kind of illness, including Type 1 Diabetes, rest is compulsory. It’s a non-negotiable.

When you rest, your parasympathetic nervous system is activated. The parasympathetic nervous system is the branch of the autonomic nervous system that is responsible for the rest and repair of your body. We want this one in action as much of the time as possible. Our resting facilitates this branch.

The Discomfort Of Rest

The thing is… I feel guilty every time I rest. As a wife, mother, homemaker, blogger, friend… I always feel like there is more I need to be doing. I can’t seem to give myself permission to rest until everything else is done. Sitting down on the sofa surrounded by the mess of an unfinished tidy-up is just not something I can do with ease.

I suspect that my inability to just sit down is rooted in my nervous system too. My twitchiness, my desire to always move and ‘do’ seems indicative of a fight-or-flight reaction. If you’re being stalked through the trees by a predator (or your body thinks that’s the case), you’re not just going to kick back and stargaze, are you?!

For a long time, my self-esteem and my self-worth, even feeling that I existed at all, came from what I did in my day. I guess you could say my raison d’être was ‘I do therefore I am’. If I had ticked jobs off my to-do list, accomplished a lot, I felt I had earned the rest. This old trauma response is ingrained. I need to learn to honour my need for rest. I need to learn to sit with myself in that moment, just as I am. I think trauma takes you away from an ability to sit with yourself in any form – mentally, physically, emotionally, or spiritually. Sitting down and just being, rather than doing, is necessary for my healing now.

This may sound counterproductive but, for now at least, I’ve put relaxation on my to-do list! It’s now one of my daily tasks. I’m going to have to condition my body back into the idea of relaxation. It feels a bit like the starting stages of meditation. You know how it is… That first time you meditate, you try so, so hard to stop thinking that you spend all your time thinking about how you shouldn’t be thinking…!!

Returning Home

I have now started to rest. But it’s painful. Yes, that’s right. I struggle to rest. But it’s getting easier. I am saying no to that extra task (or ten extra tasks). I am ensuring I have a whole day each week with no agenda items. I am also taking naps in the sun. I am taking time to read a rubbish book. I have dug out old jigsaws that I haven’t done for years. Most importantly, I am taking the time out to show my body that I am not fighting anymore and it doesn’t need to either.

Now that I live in the Middle East, I am finding myself in a country with a slower pace of life. People don’t rush here. Things happen, things may not happen. Someone may drop by, they may not. And all is good. As I reflect back on how fast-paced my life used to be, it reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend not long after moving out here. He kindly provided some feedback to my driving style. He explained that I was switching lanes too fast when on the motorway (a pace that would be considered perfectly normal in the UK!). He said that local drivers wouldn’t anticipate my ‘quick’ lane changes and that I was therefore more at-risk for an accident. I had to train myself to indicate for longer and transition over the white line at a much slower pace. It has taken time, but I move more slowly now. I hover and pause as I cross the line. I have allowed my car to flow at pace with the cars around me. And now I am encouraging my body and mind to do the same.

Sleep

I am still having some struggles with sleep. Don’t get me wrong… When I’m in bed, I’m usually out like a light. But it takes me a long time to get up those stairs to my bedroom. I procrastinate or, as my husband would say, Dilly and Dally come out to play! I think there are a few reasons for this. Firstly, the godforsaken Netflix. It still sucks me in, despite my best efforts. The combination of the blue light it produces plus the never-ending jump to the next episode makes it hard to switch off. Secondly, there is also a desire to “just get one more thing done” before I get to bed. That is the trauma response. The need to justify rest. The need to persuade myself it’s safe enough, everything is safe enough in my world, for me to go to sleep.

Andrew Weil, in his book ‘Spontaneous Healing’, argues for the importance of rest in healing. I completely agree with him. However, his discussion of rest focuses solely on sleep. Whilst I agree that sleep is important (see my post on sleep here!), I think rest needs to extend beyond that, into the waking hours of life too.

I have two dogs. I believe that they are incredible role models in the way that I should live my life. Being creatures of the wild (their grandmother was a wild-born dog), they have not been influenced by the modern world, by Netflix and to-do lists. And they sleep. They rest. Their meals and exercise are provided as required. So, the rest of their time, they sleep and rest. They play. They enjoy belly rubs. They don’t feel the slightest need to do anything more than that. And they’re happy.

Extending Rest

I recently discovered Matthew Edlund’s book on ‘The Power of Rest’. He outlines a 30-day plan for effecting rest in your life. Whilst the plan itself did not call to me (why rest for 30 days only?!), what did stay with me was the five different types of rest that he stated are needed in our lives. These are: sleep, physical rest, mental rest, social rest and spiritual rest. Matthew Edlund outlines various activities that fall under each of these headings, including meditation, power naps, walking with a friend and so on. For this content alone, I think this book is wholly worthwhile.

Going forward from here, I feel that I need to dedicate some time to considering how to percolate rest, in all its forms, throughout my days. Activities such as gratitude, breathing, yoga, meditation and laughter as forms of relaxation are likely to be content in future posts!

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Natalie Leader

Natalie is a blogger with Type 1 Diabetes. Natalie's special gifts are questioning the status quo and being a rebel. She is using these gifts to question medical 'knowledge' and find a true cure for Type 1 Diabetes.

The Beauty of Rest

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