December 21, 2024 • 47 mins
Outlouders the end of the year is almost upon us! Which is why we are sharing this particular Sunday Special with you.
When you’re feeling exhausted - like so many of us are - what do you do? Most of us think we need more sleep. But, it turns out, sleep and rest are not the same thing. In fact, we can be tired in different ways, and each one of those ways requires a different kind of rest.
In this episode of No Filter, Mia talks to Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith about the 7 different kinds of rest that will prevent you from burning out and help you show up to your life with all the energy you need.
Take Saundra’s Free Rest Quiz here.
Saundra’s book “Sacred Rest: is available here.
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CREDITS:
Host: Mia Freedman
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Producers: Kimberley Braddish & Naima Brown
Audio Producer: Leah Porges
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
You're listening to a mother and mea podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mama Mayor acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Hello out louders, it's meyor in you. Hello out louders,
it's meya in your ears. I was going to say
in your rear, but that's a different thing for Out
Loud Sunday Special. You would not mean your rear. I
tell you what, who else is feeling exhausted, maybe a
little bit burnt out? Well, the year is almost over
and I think a lot of us are feeling a
(00:38):
bit burnt out, which is why I wanted to share
an episode of No Filter with you today that I
think you're going to absolutely love and get lots out
of When you feel exhausted and you try and get
more sleep. Funnily enough, it doesn't always make you feel
more rested because sleep and rest are not actually the
same thing. And I sat down with doctor Saundra Dalton
Smith to chat about the seven different kinds of rest
(01:02):
that will prevent you from burning out and help help
you to work out what it is that you need
to feel refreshed. Enjoy this episode from Ama Mia. I'm Meya, Friedman.
You're listening to the No Filter podcast, and I have
(01:24):
a question for you. Are you tired? I'm tired and
I've been gagging to have the conversation you're about to
hear and share it with you. If you're anything like
me and you're tired, maybe you've tried to make sure
you're getting enough sleep, maybe you had an early night,
or maybe you even asked your GP to run a
few tests, but nothing seems to work. Nothing came up physically,
(01:47):
You're okay, but you still feel so tired today. I've
got some answers for you. It's going to change your life,
change mine. Saundra Dalton Smith is a physician and she
also works in the area of work life integration and
she's a self described nerd. After a period of intense
burnout in her own life, she discovered that there are
(02:11):
seven key ways in which we've become fatigued and seven
different kinds of rest that we need to restore and recharge,
and spoiler alert, none of them are sleep. So if
you're feeling really tired and getting more sleep isn't helping,
it might be one of these other areas that you
need rest in Saundra's framework has totally changed the way
(02:35):
I see my own life. I can't emphasize enough what
an aha moment it's been. I've told everybody about the
seven types of Rest. I've become completely obsessed with sharing
it with my friends, with my family, with my coworkers,
and I'm so excited to share the seven types of
rest with you right now. Here's doctor Saundra Dalton Smith.
(03:03):
You're a physician. Can you tell me a little bit
about your life before you burnt out?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Absolutely love being a physician. I don't think there was
anything that I wanted to do other than that. That's
all I could ever recall from the age of five,
and so when I finished residency and went into practice,
everything was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Until I had kids.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I could work sixty seventy hours a week, no problem.
I was married at the time. I still was able
to make it all function. However, when my husband and
I decided to start a family, that's when it all
hit the wall, and that's really when the burnout started.
I had no system in place for adding anything else
to my life, and we had our children pretty close together,
(03:45):
back to back twenty one months apart. I really didn't
have a system when we added too to our life,
and that's really when the burnout period started. I think
for myself, it was just a matter of realizing that
I had the life I had been building. I'd for
years been building this practice. Wanted these children, this house,
this family, all of the things, and I built a
(04:06):
life that I really had no energy to enjoy.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
H that's interesting and very very familiar. What did burnout
look like for you? Because obviously, when you've got two
little kids, the sleep deprivation is a whole new thing,
and that is a level of tiredness that it is
hard to explain to someone before they're actually in it.
So during that period, I imagine when your kids were small,
(04:33):
the actual physical tiredness was that at the top of
your tiredness deficit.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Unfortunately, not I thought that's what would be the issue.
And actually, at the time all of this was happening,
I really didn't have a framework for the seven types
of rest that didn't exist. I just knew I was tired,
and so, just like you mentioned, I assumed that it
was just I needed more sleep. I had children waking
me up all hours, and I thought that was the problem,
(04:59):
and so I did what I felt I needed to
do to fix that and get seven eight nine hours
of sleep. And I think it really dawned on me
that something is missing here when I remember waking up
one day and it was like ten hours like I'd
been in bed forever. We'd hired somebody to do all
the things and help out, and I was getting all
this sleep and I was still exhausted. And I think
(05:21):
that's when it really hit me that there is some
part of myself that's fatigued and I don't even understand
what it is to begin the process of trying.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
To get better.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
So then what did you do?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Well, I'm a nerd, so for me, if there's a problem,
you figure it out. And I'm a biochemistry major, so
you always go to the smallest unit of something to
try to understand it. And so for myself, it was
a matter of, Okay, I'm tired, let me figure out
what kind of tired I am. That was kind of
the beginning of this process. There's something in me exhausted
(05:51):
and I haven't nailed it yet. And so I started
looking at really just the energy I used in a day,
Like where am I expending energy? And I started writing
all these different activities that were a part of my
job as a physician and as a parent, and that's
where the divisions of the type of for us began.
There were way more than seven when it started, because
it was just like this running list of things I'm
(06:13):
looking at.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
But there were so many things that grouped together.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
And so as I started grouping things together, and because
I was actively seeing patients at the time I was
trying to heal myself, I was able to bring in
some of their information and hear their stories of fatigue,
and bring in some of their information as well.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
In the initial process, as a physician and as you say,
a self described nerd and biochemistry major, the first place
we look for causes of tiredness tend to be physical,
right in the body. So you go, okay, if I've
had enough sleep and I'm still tired, Am I sick?
Do I have an eye ins efficiency? Is there some
underlying health concern that I might have? Is it chronic fatigue?
(06:55):
Did you go there first? What made you then even
think that there were other contributing factors to tiredness?
Speaker 2 (07:03):
You're absolutely right. That is where I began.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I think because of my background The first thing I
did was start looking at all of my vitamin levels,
all of my hormone levels. I started looking at different
things regarding while if I eat more of this or
less of this, and thinking about caffeine and how I
was consuming. I did all the natural things. None of
the tests came back abnormal. Getting more sleep did not
(07:26):
seem to solve the problem. I still would wake up tired,
getting a massage or taking a me day or even
going on vacation. All of the conventional things that normally
we try when you're tired.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
None of it worked. And I think I really.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Got to a place of desperation because it's really disheartening
when you've done all the things conventional science and medicine
tells you should fix you. At the time, we were
in the middle of something called a sleep revolution. Arianna
Huffington was talking about it, and everybody was talking about sleep,
and I mean, it was such an overwhelming conversation about sleep.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
I found that so annoying, Sandra, I found it really annoying, like.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Situation.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
I know everyone needed to sleep, and everyone does need
to sleep, but I just found it very simplistic. And
maybe you're identifying why because once my kids were a
bit older, I was sleeping through the night, I was
doing all of that, but the tiredness was something different.
How did you come to seven different types? And maybe
we should stop by you just listing out what they
(08:28):
are for people who are new to this idea.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yes, absolutely, so the seven are physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, social, sensory,
and creative. And really, from that whole disconnect with the
sleep revolution, like you stated, I felt like it was
not serving me. I started leaning more into this concept
of sleep and rest can't be the same thing. So
(08:51):
now I need to define what rest is and then
actually help quantify it in such a way that we
can actually understand when we are thriving in it and
when we're deficient in it. And so that's where this
whole concept of the seven types of rest rest deficits
and being able to identify rests and even just the
conversation of sleep and rest not being the same thing.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
And let's start with physical because you might not be
a very active person. You know, it's not just about
I've gone for a massive run and I'm training for
a marathon and now I'm tired. Let's talk about how
we expend it energy physically.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Yes, everything that we're doing that uses our physical body
uses some level of physical energy. So if you're a
mom and you're lifting up kids and those kind of things,
doing laundry and dishes, or if you're a nurse, if
you're walking around the hospital or moving patients around, or
if you're a teacher and you're carrying loads of books
from one classroom to another. If you're someone who's in
(09:48):
it and you're sitting at a desk, even the body
ergonomics of the workstation that you're at puts a demand
on your physical body. So there's multiple different ways that
our physical body is using energy. You know, the things
you're looking for are does my body feel good? Do
I have neckache or muscle aches, or my legs swelling?
Those types of things that are evaluating the circulation, the lymphatics,
(10:12):
muscle flexibility. All of that's a part of well being
within the physical aspect.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I always read about people who wake up in the
morning and like jump out of bed. Is that an
indicator that you are physically rested well?
Speaker 3 (10:25):
That could be an indication that you are well rested
on many fronts, because if you're jumping out of bed,
maybe your motivation's high too, so you have a lot
of spiritual rest.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Or maybe mentally you're in a good.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Mood, so you have that as well. So there's lots
of components that add to that. I tend to question
more when someone comes out of bed after seven eight
hours and they're dragging. It's like, Okay, what's the problem here?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
What about mental rest? What are some of the things
that causes us to feel mentally exhausted?
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Yes, mental energy is used when we are concentrating, when
we're focusing on things. Multitasking tend to use quite a
bit of mental energy. Anytime we're processing and reasoning through things,
everything from going through your email, studying for a test.
When you're doing deep work in any sense or form,
is a type of mental work that you're doing.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Mental energy that you're using.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
So when you're having to think, when you're having to
be alert, mentally alert, process a lot of information decisions.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
If you're doing a lot of decisions, decision fatigue is
effect of that mental rest.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Epicite, What about emotional rest? What makes us emotionally exhausted?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yeah, this is actually the one that I was deficient
in and didn't even think it was a thin I
was carrying quite a bit of what I now term
as professional emotional labor, meaning that there is parts of
myself that I had to keep in a place of professionalism. However,
there was a bit of inauthenticity to my normal personality
that I had to step into to be that person.
(11:57):
And I think a lot of us do this, whether
you're an entrepreneur, or you're someone who's on stage, or
you know, if you're leading a company, or for myself,
I'm in an er ICU situation at times as an internist,
and I'm going to impath. I'm the type of person
who cries at the sappy commercials. You know, that's my personality.
I'm very soft hearted. However, you have never seen me
cry in a medical situation. I have learned how to
(12:19):
lock down every emotion in those moments because it doesn't
serve my patience or my nursing staff. And so every
day I would keep all of that in check, and
I had never thought about finding a place to release it,
finding a place to experience the emotional rest. So I
kept loading up my professional emotional labor in my emotional
(12:40):
backpack every day with no place to release it. And
then with children coming on top of that, I did
not expect the emotions of parenting, first steps, crying all
night long, needing you pull, you know, all of those
extra emotions. I had no reserves, and that's what put
me over the top.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
So if I had a fight side with my husband
before I came into the studio to talk to you today,
the fight would have required emotional energy. And then presenting
myself to you as a professional person in this situation
and suppressing everything that I've just gone through. That would
also require emotional energies at what you're.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Saying exactly right, Or if you're in customer service and
someone's being a jerk and you put a smile on
your face and you're serving the customer. A lot of
us use quite a bit of emotional energy in ways
we don't even recognize, and then we wonder why we
are so emotionally toxic because we have built in in
authenticity as a part of being professional, which I see
(13:40):
the reason for it in the place for it, but
we also have to have a counterpart to that so
that we understand. We have to have places where we
can be unfiltered, where we can be real, where we
can just say it as it needs to be said
and not feel like we have to hold it back.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Does empathy use up emotional energy.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Empathy does to some degree. What happens oftentimes when we're
empathic is we are able to kind of step into
the emotions of other people, but we have to make
sure that we are not assuming responsibility for those emotions.
I can sit with the pain of someone in a
near death type situation and not leave the room feeling
(14:18):
like death. I can leave that room not feeling as
if I'm experiencing it in real time with them. I
am just empathic to the pain that they're going through.
I'm willing to be in the moment with their pain.
And I think that's the part of the training that
we don't get. Physicians don't get it, nurses don't get it.
None of us are really taught how to experience hard
(14:40):
things that drain us, especially emotional hard things, and then
how to restore back that same area that we used
energy from emotionally.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
We're talking at a time in the news cycle. I mean,
the news cycle is never good. That's the point of
the news cycle, right, always terrible, but it's particularly terrible
at the moment. There's a war going on in Australia.
We've got a particular time of some terrible crimes against women,
So there's a lot of bleakness and despair, and I
think a lot of people are finding it very high
(15:09):
to know how to process that. Is that emotional exhaustion
that we're feeling. I've heard the term compassion fatigue.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yes, compassion fatigue falls under emotional rest deficits forms of it.
There's so many things that have happened really since twenty twenty,
it seems where there's like emotional drain upon emotional drain.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
You know.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
A big part of that is just understanding just some
of the science of trauma and how it affects each
of us differently. Some of us can watch the news
and these things and it doesn't attach to us as
much because we don't have backgrounds maybe that have similar
traumas or similar empathic feelings that we've had to process.
For some people who've already dealt with trauma, gotten to
(15:49):
a place where they are healed enough to be able
to experience it and keep moving, to be then reintroduced
to it is like having the trauma come back all
over again and so I find that we each have
to really be responsible for just our emotional environment, what
we allow ourselves to be infused in, and be aware
that all of that emotional input has an effect on us.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Is the hopelessness we feel when we say how this safa,
whether in the news, in other parts of the world
or in our own lives with the people that we
know and love, is that also emotionally exhausting.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
It is?
Speaker 3 (16:25):
And you know, the beauty of that is is that
because there aren't hard things that happen in the world
that we don't want to turn a blind eye to,
we want to be aware of and we want to
see how we can be a part of the solution
if we can in any way. But that's where some
of the other types of rest that I'll mention just
briefly here because they kind of fit in. One is
spiritual rest. I know, oftentimes when I have conversations with
(16:47):
if I'm speaking with companies or at a group and
I mentioned spiritual rest, very often people automatically kind of
divert off to the religion part of it. But spiritual
rest that is very core is the sense that we
all have that we need belonging and we need love
and that we want to feel accepted and that our
life has meaning and purpose. So when you're seeing some
of these hard things, a part of spiritual rest is
(17:09):
the filling up that we get when we know that
we have a part to play. So what is your
part to play in some of the things that you see,
because sometimes that helps restore us because we see that.
You know, I may not be able to travel and
be boots on the ground, so to speak, in some
of these places, but I can be an advocate. I
(17:29):
can speak up for the voiceless. I can give funds
to organizations that are boots on the ground and supporting.
You know, what is it that you can do that
really helps you to see the humanity part of it?
And how the spiritual connection you can have with another
person maybe around the world, who is in me that
you can be of service to.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
That's so interesting.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
What taxes us spiritually when we don't feel like our
life has meaning. I find that one of the biggest
spiritual disconnects that with a lot of people, particularly people
who even say that they're atheist or that they don't
have a spiritual belief system or a religious belief system
at all. Is that all of us want to know
that we are giving to the greater good. We want
(18:14):
to know that our life has some type of value
that we're contributing to the greater good. And so we're
seeing when people don't have that, when they feel like
they are just kind of if they're not here, it
wouldn't matter, you know, they're not really connecting with other people,
that things start losing. The love of life is what
I call it, the zest of life, that thing that
(18:36):
actually really makes you want to get up out of
bed every day because you see it as something bigger
than just you going through the day by yourself.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Sensory rest is a really interesting one. I think we
live in a world where we've never been more sensorially stimulated.
What taxes our senses in an average.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Day, everything basically that we use, from our phones to
our computers, to the lights and the noise that we
have in our home, whether it's the refrigerators making noise
or our TVs that are playing, to the hut of
horns that are you know, on our commute do and
from work. There's constant sounds in our environment. And I
think when you start thinking about just when you're sitting
(19:18):
at your desk. Let's say, if you're at an office,
are you hearing other people talking in other rooms? You're
a nurse, are you hearing ventilators going off of your teacher?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Are you hearing.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Background noise in the halls and the other classes. If
you're a pilot, are you hearing the droning of the
plane all day long? All of these things have an
effect on not only how we experience sensory overload, but
also how our personalities sometimes respond to that. Quite a
few people, when they become sensory overwhelmed, actually experience irritation, agitation, rage,
(19:50):
or anger. That is their psychological response to the sensory overwhelm.
A lot of people use terms like zoom, fatigue and
terms like that, and that's really what they're experiencing, a
sensory rest deficit.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I've been thinking about scrolling as you're talking, how in
many ways people use to rest scrolling through the phone,
scrolling social media, but you never feel very rested after
you do it.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Yeah, that's escapism, is what I call that. The same
thing about netflixing and chill laying around watching a series
on TV where you just kind of zone out a
little bit. Scrolling is a lot like zoning out. You
get to escape a moment into the scroll or to
the TV show, and it's not very RESTful because it
actually doesn't tap into the place of your deficit. You know,
(20:39):
you can get a little bit of creative rest if
you're watching a movie and it inspires you in some way,
or maybe something online that your scrolling inspires you. So yes,
you potentially could get some creative rest there. But normally
we're not actually even approaching it in that way. We're
approaching it just to kind of have a moment to
(21:00):
escape from all the other things that have been going
on in our life.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
I'll be honest, I'm not so sure about that one
because I find that I do you get a kind
of rest when I'm say, watching Bridgitton in bed, but
doom scrolling on my phone, well, that's yes, definitely an
energy drain. Here's more from Saundra about creative rest, which
is very close to my heart. When you talk about
(21:30):
creative rest and expending energy creatively, what does that look like.
I've heard you talk about problem solving, which I never
thought about as being a form of creative energy.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Yeah, and that's the problem so many of us use
an excessive amount of creative energy, but we don't think
of ourselves as creative. We have more entrepreneurs in the
world now than ever, which is a creative process. You
have to be creative to create a product, present a product,
make courses, whatever it is that you're doing. Problem solving.
If you're balancing schedules, if you're peering and you've got
(22:03):
two kids in different activities and you're trying to balance
these schedules out, that requires creative energy. If your finances
are not the best right now because of the economy,
and you're balancing your checkbook, that requires creative energy. You know,
it's not just the artists and the musicians and the painters. Yes, absolutely,
we know they're using creative energy. All of us are
(22:25):
using creative energy all day long to some degree, and
because we don't appreciate our own creative nature, we ignore
the fact that we need to be inspired to keep
our level of innovation intact. That's one of the things
that when we work with companies that is a big
part of it is that everybody wants their employees to
be more innovative, but no one's taking into account how
(22:46):
do you help them to build that part of themselves
back up because it wasn't trained when they got their MBAs.
So you have to equip them to be able to
understand how to even remain and become more creative.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Because a lot of people think, oh, well, if I
need creative rest, I'll go and take an out class,
or I'll go and learn to play an instrument. But
you say, that's not creative.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
No, that's actually putting a demand on your creativity.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
That's expending creative energy.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Exactly, You're using creative energy. However, I do love those
two activities you just mentioned because for some people they
are how they get emotional rest, because in that moment
of creating that art or learning to strum the guitar
or play the piano, you are learning how to release
whatever feelings are inside of you in that moment without
(23:37):
fear of judgment, because whatever art you created is the
art you create, and it's really for you, not for
anybody else to enjoy. And so for a lot of people,
that can be a moment of emotional rest because it
may be one of the few times that they are
truly authentically sharing a part of themselves without their filter.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Talk about social rest what expends our social energy these days.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
People, So people are draining. So that's the thing most.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yes, ah, they're really draining.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
And usually the people you love the most or the
most draining true because they need something from you.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I mean my kids. I adore my sons.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
They're both teenagers now, both graduated off, you know, headed
off to college. I adore them, but they're dreaming. They're
the people who need me the most, they require the
most from me. It's the same with our spouses, our colleagues,
the people we work with are for and so we
then have to look at who are the people in
our life that don't need anything from us? And for
(24:39):
a lot of people, they can't name two people who
don't need anything from them. True friends where you just
hang out and you have fun and it's life giving
and they're pouring back into you.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
That's really what social rest is about.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
And so those relationships that are putting demands on you,
that's what drains it. And then looking at who are
the people that pour back into you.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
On the note of pouring back in and draining, I
think it's so important. One of the things that you
say that blew my mind when I first heard it is.
People think that rest is about stopping doing things, but
in actual fact, it's not. Necessarily it's about doing things.
So we think of the seven different aspects that you've
(25:22):
talked about as buckets that are being constantly drained. To rest,
we have to fill them.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Right, yes, And that is the mindset shift that I
think people have the hardest time with. When I mentioned rest,
and automatically most people think of stopping cessation. It's like, oh,
I need to stop something. I need to go on
vacation or sabbatical, or I need to quit my job,
or some other idea of cessation, calling it quits and
stopping it all. With rest, what I'm referring to is
(25:53):
really about pouring back into the places of depletion. So
it's not stopping, it's finding what fills all of these
areas back up, What gets my physical energy back up,
what gets my mental energy filled back up. All of
these areas get used through throughout the day in certain ways,
depending on our careers, depending on our lifestyles, our family situations.
(26:16):
Some of these you probably have filled all the time
because you've already learned mechanisms for keeping those levels high.
For some of us, one or two of these seven
might be areas we've never even thought about. Yeah, and
so if you've never thought about it, chances are you're
not doing anything to keep it filled either.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
The first time this occurred to me, this idea, before
I even had your structure, was when someone explained to
me that there are two types of burnout for creative people.
There's the burnout of actual physical hours and too much work.
But then there's the burnout of repetition and doing the
same thing again and again until you're bored. And if
you're bored creatively, that is exhausting. So ironically, doing something new,
(26:55):
doing something more, doing something extra can make you feel
more rested and give you more creative energy.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Absolutely, and with creative rants that's the thing. Well, it's
why it's so different. You know, a lot of people
ask me what them book Sacred Rest, I give examples
for each of these seven how to get more of
and people will say, well, what about this, wouldn't this qualify?
It's like the number of ways of getting rest in
each area is endless. It's as individual as there are people.
(27:23):
It's a matter of awakening to the fact that there
are places you may not be getting restoration in and
then seeking out what fills you back up, because creatively,
one person, it may be going to the theater and
actually appreciating art in that way. To another person, it
might be appreciating natural beauty, going out to the lake,
(27:44):
or going out to the ocean and just looking at
the vastness, or staring at the eclipse, looking at the stars.
There's so many different ways that people get filled up,
and we then have to take the judgment off of
how people get rest and allow people to get it
whatever way is beneficial for them.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I was thinking about social rest in this context because
an introvert, for example, as I understand it, finds it
very training being with people, and they get rest socially
by being alone, whereas an extrovert finds it training being
alone and gets energy from being with people. So, as
you say, there's no sort of blueprint for everybody, what
(28:25):
do you do observe your own feelings after a certain situation.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Absolutely there's a high level of self awareness and really
personal leadership and being able to understand what you're needing
to be the best version of yourself. As you mentioned,
introverts tend to enjoy smaller connections or fewer connections with people.
But even introverts have to have some life giving people
in their life. They just tend to like deeper, more connected,
(28:52):
more intimate type relationships, and so they tend to have
one or two people they're really close with, whereas extroverts
still need those people, those life givers, but they're often
the people who will get a group of life giving
friends together and have a party around it. And so
both need people. The number of people that they like
(29:12):
to have that deeper level connection with tends to be different,
and then how they enjoy the engagement, whether it's more
intimate or if it's more of a party vibe.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
I remember during COVID, one of the things that people
said is how exhausted they were, and everyone was quite
baffled by that because we were mostly just locked in
our houses doing nothing. We weren't able to run around,
we weren't able to see anyone, we weren't able to
in many cases even physically exercise. Why were we so
tired over that period?
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Yeah, I must have met the seven types of rest
framework in my book Sacred Rest. More people found out
about it during COVID, which is the exact opposite of
what you would think, as you mentioned, because people were
literally living the dream. They were working from home and
their pajamas is what every person in the world said
they wanted to do, and then once it happened, they
(30:06):
were like, this is tiring. And a big part of
that is be because we lost dollar boundaries. Being able
to physically go into the office then hop in your
car and come home set some really definite work life
boundaries that helped us be able to maintain some level
of work life integration. However, when the natural boundaries were
(30:26):
removed and then we had to personally manage our own boundaries,
we had no frame of reference for that. No one
knew how to have good, healthy personal work life boundaries.
Things started filtering over. People wouldn't take breaks where you
would take a break at work because you know, you
got us nine to five, you get the two fifteen
minute breaks. People would take them at home. It's like
(30:48):
I'm on the break, So nobody would even do that,
you know, Zoom or teams or whatever it was people
were using. It felt like it was easier, but we
didn't realize how much sensory overload we were experiencing when
we were setting in those meetings with fifteen screens showing
different people's backgrounds. We didn't realize how draining that was,
(31:09):
and we weren't stopping because we thought, oh, well, we're
sitting in our chair, why should I be tired. There
was just no frame of reference of how to manage that.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
And now that the pandemic is thankfully behind us, more
or less, there has been a remainder of hybrid work
for a lot of people who are in office based jobs.
And I've read a lot about for perhaps some of
the reasons you say they're still feeling very tired even
though they are even more now living the dream in
(31:42):
saying I've got certain days at work, I've got certain
days at home.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Why is that most companies are really good at asking
people what it is that they desire to have to
be happy at their job and to remain What I
find is they don't really do a great job at
equipping them to be able to manage it in such
a way that it actually helps them to still feel energized.
(32:05):
Most of the time when we are working with the company.
What I'm finding when we do our initial assessment is
that the people within the company, they are passionate, usually
about the work they're doing, but they don't actually have
energy for what they're passionate about. So they're showing up
with their exhaustion. They're showing up as what we call
functional burnouts. They're in their seat, they're present, they're smiling
(32:29):
at the meetings, but they don't have any joy for
the work anymore. Their body feels bad even as they're
sitting in the chair. They don't even feel good as
they're sitting there doing the work. And when the work
is over, the work is not even at the highest
capacity of what they're capable of. It's just good enough.
It's what they can produce from their exhaustion. And so
(32:49):
I find that for a lot of people that are
making this transition, to be able to understand why they're
feeling that way, it's requiring them to begin with understanding
first what type of time that they actually are and
begin to do some habit stacking so that they can
integrate restorative practices in the middle of their busy day.
(33:11):
Not trying to find time for rest, not trying to
carve out time, because there isn't any extra time, it
just is what it is, but actually using the time
that they already have at work and layering in some
restorative practices so that they naturally start doing some of
these things without thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
What are some examples. I've heard you talk about one
workplace where they made everybody have the same neutral zoom background.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
That's a simple one I think every company should do
to begin with, because when you think about it, in
the old days, when we were all going into offices
and sitting around to have a board meeting, everybody's in
the same room. We're all seeing the same sensory input. Now,
if you got ten people on your board that you're
sitting with, every single screen has a different image around it.
(33:59):
The wallpaper, the bed in the background, the bookshelf, whatever
it is.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Slatmate walking past into towel.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Yeah, and you're looking at all of this stuff in
your brain is processing it. Whether you are trying to
process it or not. It naturally is processing it, which
is exhausting. And so when you change it just to
a uniform background that your entire team or companies are using,
it recreates being in a room together because everybody's seeing
the same thing. Another example would be for those who
(34:28):
are trying to have more creativity and staying inspired. Think
about what are the images that actually make you feel inspired.
Whether it's images of the beach or beautiful locations, or
beautiful architecture or pictures, or it could be videos of something,
whatever it is, start bringing some of those elements actually
(34:50):
into your environment.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
I hope you're loving this conversation as much as I am,
and I hope you can understand why I was so
excited to bring Sondra into your ears and these concept
of seven types of rest. I've been feeling a lot
of fatigue lately over the past year, and particularly over
the last few months, so of course I'm going to
use this opportunity to ask the brilliant doctor an expert
(35:14):
about my own habits and discuss my own results from
the rest quiz that she's created. Yeah, I am tired, Soandra,
I want to ask you about a particular habit of
mine that everybody at work tases me for. But I
(35:38):
move my office furniture around a lot. I find it
does something for me. I'm not quite sure what what.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Is that about that makes me think about specifically an
emotional type of Uh. It's almost like art, because you
think about interior design, it's a form of art. Basically
it's a form of creativity. So you're using creative energy
in that moment because you're thinking, what this will look
better here. But you're also in the moment being able
(36:04):
to place things where you feel they belong, which means
you're being able to express your feelings in some way
because you get to determine this feels right in this
place here, wherever you move it to, or whatever you
exchange out. I find the same thing for people who
sometimes will say something just doesn't feel right, and they'll
(36:25):
go in and they'll change their outfit and come back
out with something else.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
I do that too.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
It's connecting with your authentic self. It's like, authentically, this
is not representing me in this moment, and I choose me.
I'm going to be represented, and I'm going to rearrange
whatever has to be rearranged to adequately and authentically reflect me,
which is basically at the core of emotional rest.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
That's so interesting. So something that feels soothing to you
on a basic level or RESTful, it's interesting to think
about what kind of rest that might be. It might
be creative rest, it might be mental rest. Are there
particular times in a woman's life where she's most likely
to feel exhausted. I'm thinking about childbirth, to little kids, divorce, manipause.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Honestly, I would probably answer that by saying transition of
any sort, because any type of transition, the change itself
puts a level of stress that requires a reevaluation of
what rest is needed now, and I think too often
we get in our habits where like for myself, I
(37:33):
knew that I needed emotional rest, that was the one
that was deficient. However, when I started transitioning into like
right now, I spend a whole lot of time on
the road, traveling to speak at conferences and with organizations.
With that, I now realize that physical rest is one
I really have to pay more attention to because pulling
(37:54):
luggage and doing all the different things which I didn't
have to do when I was in the hospital. And
so I think any type of transition, good or bad,
requires us to take a new assessment of what's happening
right now with me.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
That's so interesting, because you know how people say that
moving house is very stressful. It's almost like an intersection
of all the different types of rest because physically it's
very demanding, and then mentally it's exhausting because all the
sort of muscle memory you have for reaching for a
light switch, grabbing a fork, looking for the peanut butter,
(38:30):
all of that's different. So suddenly you have to engage
mentally every time you switch on a light or turn
on a tap or look for a towel, And that
goes on for a really long time, and then emotionally
there are feelings about moving from one to the other.
Is that kind of an example of how you can
need a lot of different types of rest at once.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Absolutely, especially as you mentioned, with changes like that, those
big transitions empty nest. I find a lot of women
when all the kids are out, and now it's like, Okay,
what do I do with my attention now that I
don't have people I'm having to take care of because
all of these different changes, changes and jobs. There's a
lot of women who I'm finding now who are stepping
(39:14):
up in roles and taking on new leadership positions and
starting their own companies and having to navigate that part
of it, the advancement within their career and the stressors
that come with that in realizing a higher level of
personal managements needed, not just managing people. Yes, that's a
necessary as well, but actual personal management the level of
(39:37):
self awareness of what they need so that they can
continue to grow their company. You know, one of the
things that I probably get the most upset probably isn't
the right word distressed, Probably is the right word over
emails that I get from women who say, I don't
really know if I want my company to scale or
to grow, or I don't really know if I want
(39:58):
to take that new leadership position because I'm already so tired,
and what is that going to look like if I
go to the next level. I like want to climb
through the wall when I hear something like that, that's
the exact opposite of living a thriving life.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
So what do you tell them?
Speaker 3 (40:14):
What I told them is, hey, let's take a look
at what's making you feel this way, and let's actually
get to the root cans of what's holding you back,
because that thought process of me actually being able to
be more beneficial to the world does not mean that
I have to sacrifice more of myself. There is a
way to actually build and be more fruitful and to
(40:37):
thrive in your life and not burn out in the process.
And so as a matter of taking those steps to
go down that path.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Well, I did the rest quiz, and oh, I'm not
doing great. My big outliers my emotional You say that
anything over a twenty five is bad. You're feeling the
effects of the rest and you need to change. My
physical restcore is twenty six, my mental rest score is
(41:04):
thirty one, My emotional rest score is forty two. My
spiritual restcore is twenty three. So I'm doing quite well there. Spiritually.
I think that's since I became a grandmother. I really
love spending time with my granddaughter. That feels very spiritually
RESTful in a way that it didn't spending time with
my own children. There's something about being a grandparent that
(41:25):
is RESTful, even though it's not physically RESTful, it's RESTful
in another level. And also I'm very satisfied at work
in terms of my spiritual knowing my purpose. My social
restcore is thirty seven, and then my sensory and creative
rest scores are thirty five. So I've got some work to.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Do heading toward that and burnt out these. But I mean,
your number is actually way better than mine. Then I
would probably say all of mine were probably close to
forty except for physical I mean, being a doctor is
not physically demanding. But yeah, my scores at the time
would have all been in the forties. And I think
the thing is we have to be aware. It's like
a snapshot of how you're feeling in the moment, and
(42:01):
so I always say, use it as a snapshot to
then look and reflect on what am I doing to
pour back into the area where I see this deficit,
because chances are some of those there are not very
many things you're doing on a consistent basis to pour
back into those areas, And so then it's just beginning
to layer some of those into your day, your week,
(42:23):
your math, depending on your schedule and different things.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Can you tell me one thing to do for my
emotional risk goal, which is an ugly forty two what
can I do to emotionally rest or can you not
tell that without knowing more.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Without knowing kind of a little bit more of your background.
But one of the things I would say is make
sure there's at least one person in your life. It
could be a friend, it could be a spouse, it
could be counselor or therapist, whatever, but one person in
your life where you never feel like you have to
pretty up what you say that you can literally say
(42:57):
it exactly the way you want to say it and
release it, and I'll just speak for myself. One of
the things for emotional rest that I had to learn
that the hardest part for me of emotional rest wasn't
sharing with people necessarily what I was feeling, like I'm mad,
I'm sad, all of that, but it was actually a
deeper level of vulnerability that I had to get to
(43:20):
to be able to actually feel emotionally rested. So in
that situation, like if I'm at the bedside with the
patient and they're dying and all of that, and of
course I'm sad for them and all telling my husband,
you know, at the end of the day that made
me sad didn't help me feel emotionally rested. What actually
helped me was actually going deeper and telling him what
(43:41):
the moment did inside of me. Like, for example, I
remember one time something happened. I don't remember what the
details were, but I remember saying to him in that moment,
I felt useless. I felt like all those twelve years
of medical practice did not tell me what I needed
to do to help this person. I could do nothing
but stand there and hold their hand while whatever was
(44:03):
going on inside of their body, because there was no
medical science to help me with this. And I was like,
I felt you, I felt like I had wasted all
of these years of my life. Now, that was a
really raw statement to say. And the thing is, it's
not something he could fix, you know, It's not like
he could pet me on the back and make it
all better. But I needed to tell the truth of
(44:24):
how I felt in that moment, and in saying it,
there was a freedom. It's like I don't have to
carry this feeling and feel bad for thinking it. I
can just say it and be okay with this is
how I'm feeling in the moment.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
So thank you so much. I've just looked at my
life in such a different way through the framework of
your seven types of rest, and it's all I do.
I just tell everybody about it, and it's made it
so much easier to replenish, because yeah, I sleep fine.
Sleep's never been a problem for me, and yet look
at my burnout. So thank you.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Oh, I appreciate it's been enjoy chatting with you.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Well, there we go. Did you have any big aha
moments listening to that, do you have now maybe a
better sense of exactly what kind of tired you might
be and what kind of rest you need. I was
really struck by the idea of emotional rest and that
the solution is to make sure that we have relationships
where we can be our most authentic selves. I'd never
(45:22):
thought about that before, and I'd never thought about how
emotionally taxing it is when you can't just be completely yourself.
And this idea of finding people that don't need anything
from us except for our vulnerability. I think maybe that's
why it's so RESTful being around dogs or cats. The
(45:43):
other thing that I thought was really interesting is when
she talked about any time of transition is particularly exhausting emotionally,
and I know that I really felt this at big
transitional times in my kids' lives as well as my own.
I guess because they are transitional times in my lives too,
like when my son left school, and then when he
(46:04):
moved out of home, when he got married, when my
daughter finished school. Those times have been really emotional and
really exhausting. And I never thought about that that the
idea of transition is emotionally exhausting. It can be so
hard to figure it out, can't it? Because when you're tired,
(46:26):
we often need more than one kind of rest. So
I highly recommend that you take these rest quiz that
doctor Sandra Tolton Smith has created to help you figure
out where you might have a bit of work to do.
Sondra also has a book, Say co Addressed. If you
want to have a look at that, we'll put a
link to where you can buy it in the show notes.
Do you know I've got a newsletter if you subscribe
(46:48):
to Babbel, I'm writing about the rest quiers this week.
I'll send you a link to it and just detail
all those seven different types of rest in case you
want to be reminded of them, because probably you were
listening to this when you were I don't know, driving, walking, cooking, sleeping, Well,
maybe you need it to sleep. Probably won't remember much
if you're asleep. Anyway, I'll put a link in the
(47:09):
show notes for my Babbel newsletter where I write about
all kinds of things. Off your pop, take the quiz,
call your bestdie, get some rest. This episode was produced
by Kimberly British and Naima Brown, with sound production by
Leah Paul, i'm mea Friedman and good night
You're listening to a mother and mea podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Mama Mayor acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
that this podcast is recorded on.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Hello out louders, it's meyor in you. Hello out louders,
it's meya in your ears. I was going to say
in your rear, but that's a different thing for Out
Loud Sunday Special. You would not mean your rear. I
tell you what, who else is feeling exhausted, maybe a
little bit burnt out? Well, the year is almost over
and I think a lot of us are feeling a
(00:38):
bit burnt out, which is why I wanted to share
an episode of No Filter with you today that I
think you're going to absolutely love and get lots out
of When you feel exhausted and you try and get
more sleep. Funnily enough, it doesn't always make you feel
more rested because sleep and rest are not actually the
same thing. And I sat down with doctor Saundra Dalton
Smith to chat about the seven different kinds of rest
(01:02):
that will prevent you from burning out and help help
you to work out what it is that you need
to feel refreshed. Enjoy this episode from Ama Mia. I'm Meya, Friedman.
You're listening to the No Filter podcast, and I have
(01:24):
a question for you. Are you tired? I'm tired and
I've been gagging to have the conversation you're about to
hear and share it with you. If you're anything like
me and you're tired, maybe you've tried to make sure
you're getting enough sleep, maybe you had an early night,
or maybe you even asked your GP to run a
few tests, but nothing seems to work. Nothing came up physically,
(01:47):
You're okay, but you still feel so tired today. I've
got some answers for you. It's going to change your life,
change mine. Saundra Dalton Smith is a physician and she
also works in the area of work life integration and
she's a self described nerd. After a period of intense
burnout in her own life, she discovered that there are
(02:11):
seven key ways in which we've become fatigued and seven
different kinds of rest that we need to restore and recharge,
and spoiler alert, none of them are sleep. So if
you're feeling really tired and getting more sleep isn't helping,
it might be one of these other areas that you
need rest in Saundra's framework has totally changed the way
(02:35):
I see my own life. I can't emphasize enough what
an aha moment it's been. I've told everybody about the
seven types of Rest. I've become completely obsessed with sharing
it with my friends, with my family, with my coworkers,
and I'm so excited to share the seven types of
rest with you right now. Here's doctor Saundra Dalton Smith.
(03:03):
You're a physician. Can you tell me a little bit
about your life before you burnt out?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yes?
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Absolutely love being a physician. I don't think there was
anything that I wanted to do other than that. That's
all I could ever recall from the age of five,
and so when I finished residency and went into practice,
everything was fantastic.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
Until I had kids.
Speaker 3 (03:24):
I could work sixty seventy hours a week, no problem.
I was married at the time. I still was able
to make it all function. However, when my husband and
I decided to start a family, that's when it all
hit the wall, and that's really when the burnout started.
I had no system in place for adding anything else
to my life, and we had our children pretty close together,
(03:45):
back to back twenty one months apart. I really didn't
have a system when we added too to our life,
and that's really when the burnout period started. I think
for myself, it was just a matter of realizing that
I had the life I had been building. I'd for
years been building this practice. Wanted these children, this house,
this family, all of the things, and I built a
(04:06):
life that I really had no energy to enjoy.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
H that's interesting and very very familiar. What did burnout
look like for you? Because obviously, when you've got two
little kids, the sleep deprivation is a whole new thing,
and that is a level of tiredness that it is
hard to explain to someone before they're actually in it.
So during that period, I imagine when your kids were small,
(04:33):
the actual physical tiredness was that at the top of
your tiredness deficit.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Unfortunately, not I thought that's what would be the issue.
And actually, at the time all of this was happening,
I really didn't have a framework for the seven types
of rest that didn't exist. I just knew I was tired,
and so, just like you mentioned, I assumed that it
was just I needed more sleep. I had children waking
me up all hours, and I thought that was the problem,
(04:59):
and so I did what I felt I needed to
do to fix that and get seven eight nine hours
of sleep. And I think it really dawned on me
that something is missing here when I remember waking up
one day and it was like ten hours like I'd
been in bed forever. We'd hired somebody to do all
the things and help out, and I was getting all
this sleep and I was still exhausted. And I think
(05:21):
that's when it really hit me that there is some
part of myself that's fatigued and I don't even understand
what it is to begin the process of trying.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
To get better.
Speaker 1 (05:30):
So then what did you do?
Speaker 3 (05:31):
Well, I'm a nerd, so for me, if there's a problem,
you figure it out. And I'm a biochemistry major, so
you always go to the smallest unit of something to
try to understand it. And so for myself, it was
a matter of, Okay, I'm tired, let me figure out
what kind of tired I am. That was kind of
the beginning of this process. There's something in me exhausted
(05:51):
and I haven't nailed it yet. And so I started
looking at really just the energy I used in a day,
Like where am I expending energy? And I started writing
all these different activities that were a part of my
job as a physician and as a parent, and that's
where the divisions of the type of for us began.
There were way more than seven when it started, because
it was just like this running list of things I'm
(06:13):
looking at.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
But there were so many things that grouped together.
Speaker 3 (06:17):
And so as I started grouping things together, and because
I was actively seeing patients at the time I was
trying to heal myself, I was able to bring in
some of their information and hear their stories of fatigue,
and bring in some of their information as well.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
In the initial process, as a physician and as you say,
a self described nerd and biochemistry major, the first place
we look for causes of tiredness tend to be physical,
right in the body. So you go, okay, if I've
had enough sleep and I'm still tired, Am I sick?
Do I have an eye ins efficiency? Is there some
underlying health concern that I might have? Is it chronic fatigue?
(06:55):
Did you go there first? What made you then even
think that there were other contributing factors to tiredness?
Speaker 2 (07:03):
You're absolutely right. That is where I began.
Speaker 3 (07:04):
I think because of my background The first thing I
did was start looking at all of my vitamin levels,
all of my hormone levels. I started looking at different
things regarding while if I eat more of this or
less of this, and thinking about caffeine and how I
was consuming. I did all the natural things. None of
the tests came back abnormal. Getting more sleep did not
(07:26):
seem to solve the problem. I still would wake up tired,
getting a massage or taking a me day or even
going on vacation. All of the conventional things that normally
we try when you're tired.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
None of it worked. And I think I really.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
Got to a place of desperation because it's really disheartening
when you've done all the things conventional science and medicine
tells you should fix you. At the time, we were
in the middle of something called a sleep revolution. Arianna
Huffington was talking about it, and everybody was talking about sleep,
and I mean, it was such an overwhelming conversation about sleep.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
I found that so annoying, Sandra, I found it really annoying, like.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
Situation.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
I know everyone needed to sleep, and everyone does need
to sleep, but I just found it very simplistic. And
maybe you're identifying why because once my kids were a
bit older, I was sleeping through the night, I was
doing all of that, but the tiredness was something different.
How did you come to seven different types? And maybe
we should stop by you just listing out what they
(08:28):
are for people who are new to this idea.
Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yes, absolutely, so the seven are physical, mental, spiritual, emotional, social, sensory,
and creative. And really, from that whole disconnect with the
sleep revolution, like you stated, I felt like it was
not serving me. I started leaning more into this concept
of sleep and rest can't be the same thing. So
(08:51):
now I need to define what rest is and then
actually help quantify it in such a way that we
can actually understand when we are thriving in it and
when we're deficient in it. And so that's where this
whole concept of the seven types of rest rest deficits
and being able to identify rests and even just the
conversation of sleep and rest not being the same thing.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
And let's start with physical because you might not be
a very active person. You know, it's not just about
I've gone for a massive run and I'm training for
a marathon and now I'm tired. Let's talk about how
we expend it energy physically.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Yes, everything that we're doing that uses our physical body
uses some level of physical energy. So if you're a
mom and you're lifting up kids and those kind of things,
doing laundry and dishes, or if you're a nurse, if
you're walking around the hospital or moving patients around, or
if you're a teacher and you're carrying loads of books
from one classroom to another. If you're someone who's in
(09:48):
it and you're sitting at a desk, even the body
ergonomics of the workstation that you're at puts a demand
on your physical body. So there's multiple different ways that
our physical body is using energy. You know, the things
you're looking for are does my body feel good? Do
I have neckache or muscle aches, or my legs swelling?
Those types of things that are evaluating the circulation, the lymphatics,
(10:12):
muscle flexibility. All of that's a part of well being
within the physical aspect.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
I always read about people who wake up in the
morning and like jump out of bed. Is that an
indicator that you are physically rested well?
Speaker 3 (10:25):
That could be an indication that you are well rested
on many fronts, because if you're jumping out of bed,
maybe your motivation's high too, so you have a lot
of spiritual rest.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
Or maybe mentally you're in a good.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
Mood, so you have that as well. So there's lots
of components that add to that. I tend to question
more when someone comes out of bed after seven eight
hours and they're dragging. It's like, Okay, what's the problem here?
Speaker 1 (10:48):
What about mental rest? What are some of the things
that causes us to feel mentally exhausted?
Speaker 3 (10:53):
Yes, mental energy is used when we are concentrating, when
we're focusing on things. Multitasking tend to use quite a
bit of mental energy. Anytime we're processing and reasoning through things,
everything from going through your email, studying for a test.
When you're doing deep work in any sense or form,
is a type of mental work that you're doing.
Speaker 2 (11:15):
Mental energy that you're using.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
So when you're having to think, when you're having to
be alert, mentally alert, process a lot of information decisions.
Speaker 3 (11:24):
If you're doing a lot of decisions, decision fatigue is
effect of that mental rest.
Speaker 1 (11:30):
Epicite, What about emotional rest? What makes us emotionally exhausted?
Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yeah, this is actually the one that I was deficient
in and didn't even think it was a thin I
was carrying quite a bit of what I now term
as professional emotional labor, meaning that there is parts of
myself that I had to keep in a place of professionalism. However,
there was a bit of inauthenticity to my normal personality
that I had to step into to be that person.
(11:57):
And I think a lot of us do this, whether
you're an entrepreneur, or you're someone who's on stage, or
you know, if you're leading a company, or for myself,
I'm in an er ICU situation at times as an internist,
and I'm going to impath. I'm the type of person
who cries at the sappy commercials. You know, that's my personality.
I'm very soft hearted. However, you have never seen me
cry in a medical situation. I have learned how to
(12:19):
lock down every emotion in those moments because it doesn't
serve my patience or my nursing staff. And so every
day I would keep all of that in check, and
I had never thought about finding a place to release it,
finding a place to experience the emotional rest. So I
kept loading up my professional emotional labor in my emotional
(12:40):
backpack every day with no place to release it. And
then with children coming on top of that, I did
not expect the emotions of parenting, first steps, crying all
night long, needing you pull, you know, all of those
extra emotions. I had no reserves, and that's what put
me over the top.
Speaker 1 (12:58):
So if I had a fight side with my husband
before I came into the studio to talk to you today,
the fight would have required emotional energy. And then presenting
myself to you as a professional person in this situation
and suppressing everything that I've just gone through. That would
also require emotional energies at what you're.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Saying exactly right, Or if you're in customer service and
someone's being a jerk and you put a smile on
your face and you're serving the customer. A lot of
us use quite a bit of emotional energy in ways
we don't even recognize, and then we wonder why we
are so emotionally toxic because we have built in in
authenticity as a part of being professional, which I see
(13:40):
the reason for it in the place for it, but
we also have to have a counterpart to that so
that we understand. We have to have places where we
can be unfiltered, where we can be real, where we
can just say it as it needs to be said
and not feel like we have to hold it back.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
Does empathy use up emotional energy.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
Empathy does to some degree. What happens oftentimes when we're
empathic is we are able to kind of step into
the emotions of other people, but we have to make
sure that we are not assuming responsibility for those emotions.
I can sit with the pain of someone in a
near death type situation and not leave the room feeling
(14:18):
like death. I can leave that room not feeling as
if I'm experiencing it in real time with them. I
am just empathic to the pain that they're going through.
I'm willing to be in the moment with their pain.
And I think that's the part of the training that
we don't get. Physicians don't get it, nurses don't get it.
None of us are really taught how to experience hard
(14:40):
things that drain us, especially emotional hard things, and then
how to restore back that same area that we used
energy from emotionally.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
We're talking at a time in the news cycle. I mean,
the news cycle is never good. That's the point of
the news cycle, right, always terrible, but it's particularly terrible
at the moment. There's a war going on in Australia.
We've got a particular time of some terrible crimes against women,
So there's a lot of bleakness and despair, and I
think a lot of people are finding it very high
(15:09):
to know how to process that. Is that emotional exhaustion
that we're feeling. I've heard the term compassion fatigue.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yes, compassion fatigue falls under emotional rest deficits forms of it.
There's so many things that have happened really since twenty twenty,
it seems where there's like emotional drain upon emotional drain.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
You know.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
A big part of that is just understanding just some
of the science of trauma and how it affects each
of us differently. Some of us can watch the news
and these things and it doesn't attach to us as
much because we don't have backgrounds maybe that have similar
traumas or similar empathic feelings that we've had to process.
For some people who've already dealt with trauma, gotten to
(15:49):
a place where they are healed enough to be able
to experience it and keep moving, to be then reintroduced
to it is like having the trauma come back all
over again and so I find that we each have
to really be responsible for just our emotional environment, what
we allow ourselves to be infused in, and be aware
that all of that emotional input has an effect on us.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Is the hopelessness we feel when we say how this safa,
whether in the news, in other parts of the world
or in our own lives with the people that we
know and love, is that also emotionally exhausting.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
It is?
Speaker 3 (16:25):
And you know, the beauty of that is is that
because there aren't hard things that happen in the world
that we don't want to turn a blind eye to,
we want to be aware of and we want to
see how we can be a part of the solution
if we can in any way. But that's where some
of the other types of rest that I'll mention just
briefly here because they kind of fit in. One is
spiritual rest. I know, oftentimes when I have conversations with
(16:47):
if I'm speaking with companies or at a group and
I mentioned spiritual rest, very often people automatically kind of
divert off to the religion part of it. But spiritual
rest that is very core is the sense that we
all have that we need belonging and we need love
and that we want to feel accepted and that our
life has meaning and purpose. So when you're seeing some
of these hard things, a part of spiritual rest is
(17:09):
the filling up that we get when we know that
we have a part to play. So what is your
part to play in some of the things that you see,
because sometimes that helps restore us because we see that.
You know, I may not be able to travel and
be boots on the ground, so to speak, in some
of these places, but I can be an advocate. I
(17:29):
can speak up for the voiceless. I can give funds
to organizations that are boots on the ground and supporting.
You know, what is it that you can do that
really helps you to see the humanity part of it?
And how the spiritual connection you can have with another
person maybe around the world, who is in me that
you can be of service to.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
That's so interesting.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
What taxes us spiritually when we don't feel like our
life has meaning. I find that one of the biggest
spiritual disconnects that with a lot of people, particularly people
who even say that they're atheist or that they don't
have a spiritual belief system or a religious belief system
at all. Is that all of us want to know
that we are giving to the greater good. We want
(18:14):
to know that our life has some type of value
that we're contributing to the greater good. And so we're
seeing when people don't have that, when they feel like
they are just kind of if they're not here, it
wouldn't matter, you know, they're not really connecting with other people,
that things start losing. The love of life is what
I call it, the zest of life, that thing that
(18:36):
actually really makes you want to get up out of
bed every day because you see it as something bigger
than just you going through the day by yourself.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Sensory rest is a really interesting one. I think we
live in a world where we've never been more sensorially stimulated.
What taxes our senses in an average.
Speaker 3 (18:55):
Day, everything basically that we use, from our phones to
our computers, to the lights and the noise that we
have in our home, whether it's the refrigerators making noise
or our TVs that are playing, to the hut of
horns that are you know, on our commute do and
from work. There's constant sounds in our environment. And I
think when you start thinking about just when you're sitting
(19:18):
at your desk. Let's say, if you're at an office,
are you hearing other people talking in other rooms? You're
a nurse, are you hearing ventilators going off of your teacher?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Are you hearing.
Speaker 3 (19:27):
Background noise in the halls and the other classes. If
you're a pilot, are you hearing the droning of the
plane all day long? All of these things have an
effect on not only how we experience sensory overload, but
also how our personalities sometimes respond to that. Quite a
few people, when they become sensory overwhelmed, actually experience irritation, agitation, rage,
(19:50):
or anger. That is their psychological response to the sensory overwhelm.
A lot of people use terms like zoom, fatigue and
terms like that, and that's really what they're experiencing, a
sensory rest deficit.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
I've been thinking about scrolling as you're talking, how in
many ways people use to rest scrolling through the phone,
scrolling social media, but you never feel very rested after
you do it.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Yeah, that's escapism, is what I call that. The same
thing about netflixing and chill laying around watching a series
on TV where you just kind of zone out a
little bit. Scrolling is a lot like zoning out. You
get to escape a moment into the scroll or to
the TV show, and it's not very RESTful because it
actually doesn't tap into the place of your deficit. You know,
(20:39):
you can get a little bit of creative rest if
you're watching a movie and it inspires you in some way,
or maybe something online that your scrolling inspires you. So yes,
you potentially could get some creative rest there. But normally
we're not actually even approaching it in that way. We're
approaching it just to kind of have a moment to
(21:00):
escape from all the other things that have been going
on in our life.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
I'll be honest, I'm not so sure about that one
because I find that I do you get a kind
of rest when I'm say, watching Bridgitton in bed, but
doom scrolling on my phone, well, that's yes, definitely an
energy drain. Here's more from Saundra about creative rest, which
is very close to my heart. When you talk about
(21:30):
creative rest and expending energy creatively, what does that look like.
I've heard you talk about problem solving, which I never
thought about as being a form of creative energy.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Yeah, and that's the problem so many of us use
an excessive amount of creative energy, but we don't think
of ourselves as creative. We have more entrepreneurs in the
world now than ever, which is a creative process. You
have to be creative to create a product, present a product,
make courses, whatever it is that you're doing. Problem solving.
If you're balancing schedules, if you're peering and you've got
(22:03):
two kids in different activities and you're trying to balance
these schedules out, that requires creative energy. If your finances
are not the best right now because of the economy,
and you're balancing your checkbook, that requires creative energy. You know,
it's not just the artists and the musicians and the painters. Yes, absolutely,
we know they're using creative energy. All of us are
(22:25):
using creative energy all day long to some degree, and
because we don't appreciate our own creative nature, we ignore
the fact that we need to be inspired to keep
our level of innovation intact. That's one of the things
that when we work with companies that is a big
part of it is that everybody wants their employees to
be more innovative, but no one's taking into account how
(22:46):
do you help them to build that part of themselves
back up because it wasn't trained when they got their MBAs.
So you have to equip them to be able to
understand how to even remain and become more creative.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
Because a lot of people think, oh, well, if I
need creative rest, I'll go and take an out class,
or I'll go and learn to play an instrument. But
you say, that's not creative.
Speaker 2 (23:10):
No, that's actually putting a demand on your creativity.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
That's expending creative energy.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Exactly, You're using creative energy. However, I do love those
two activities you just mentioned because for some people they
are how they get emotional rest, because in that moment
of creating that art or learning to strum the guitar
or play the piano, you are learning how to release
whatever feelings are inside of you in that moment without
(23:37):
fear of judgment, because whatever art you created is the
art you create, and it's really for you, not for
anybody else to enjoy. And so for a lot of people,
that can be a moment of emotional rest because it
may be one of the few times that they are
truly authentically sharing a part of themselves without their filter.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Talk about social rest what expends our social energy these days.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
People, So people are draining. So that's the thing most.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Yes, ah, they're really draining.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
And usually the people you love the most or the
most draining true because they need something from you.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
I mean my kids. I adore my sons.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
They're both teenagers now, both graduated off, you know, headed
off to college. I adore them, but they're dreaming. They're
the people who need me the most, they require the
most from me. It's the same with our spouses, our colleagues,
the people we work with are for and so we
then have to look at who are the people in
our life that don't need anything from us? And for
(24:39):
a lot of people, they can't name two people who
don't need anything from them. True friends where you just
hang out and you have fun and it's life giving
and they're pouring back into you.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
That's really what social rest is about.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
And so those relationships that are putting demands on you,
that's what drains it. And then looking at who are
the people that pour back into you.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
On the note of pouring back in and draining, I
think it's so important. One of the things that you
say that blew my mind when I first heard it is.
People think that rest is about stopping doing things, but
in actual fact, it's not. Necessarily it's about doing things.
So we think of the seven different aspects that you've
(25:22):
talked about as buckets that are being constantly drained. To rest,
we have to fill them.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Right, yes, And that is the mindset shift that I
think people have the hardest time with. When I mentioned rest,
and automatically most people think of stopping cessation. It's like, oh,
I need to stop something. I need to go on
vacation or sabbatical, or I need to quit my job,
or some other idea of cessation, calling it quits and
stopping it all. With rest, what I'm referring to is
(25:53):
really about pouring back into the places of depletion. So
it's not stopping, it's finding what fills all of these
areas back up, What gets my physical energy back up,
what gets my mental energy filled back up. All of
these areas get used through throughout the day in certain ways,
depending on our careers, depending on our lifestyles, our family situations.
(26:16):
Some of these you probably have filled all the time
because you've already learned mechanisms for keeping those levels high.
For some of us, one or two of these seven
might be areas we've never even thought about. Yeah, and
so if you've never thought about it, chances are you're
not doing anything to keep it filled either.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
The first time this occurred to me, this idea, before
I even had your structure, was when someone explained to
me that there are two types of burnout for creative people.
There's the burnout of actual physical hours and too much work.
But then there's the burnout of repetition and doing the
same thing again and again until you're bored. And if
you're bored creatively, that is exhausting. So ironically, doing something new,
(26:55):
doing something more, doing something extra can make you feel
more rested and give you more creative energy.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Absolutely, and with creative rants that's the thing. Well, it's
why it's so different. You know, a lot of people
ask me what them book Sacred Rest, I give examples
for each of these seven how to get more of
and people will say, well, what about this, wouldn't this qualify?
It's like the number of ways of getting rest in
each area is endless. It's as individual as there are people.
(27:23):
It's a matter of awakening to the fact that there
are places you may not be getting restoration in and
then seeking out what fills you back up, because creatively,
one person, it may be going to the theater and
actually appreciating art in that way. To another person, it
might be appreciating natural beauty, going out to the lake,
(27:44):
or going out to the ocean and just looking at
the vastness, or staring at the eclipse, looking at the stars.
There's so many different ways that people get filled up,
and we then have to take the judgment off of
how people get rest and allow people to get it
whatever way is beneficial for them.
Speaker 1 (28:02):
I was thinking about social rest in this context because
an introvert, for example, as I understand it, finds it
very training being with people, and they get rest socially
by being alone, whereas an extrovert finds it training being
alone and gets energy from being with people. So, as
you say, there's no sort of blueprint for everybody, what
(28:25):
do you do observe your own feelings after a certain situation.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Absolutely there's a high level of self awareness and really
personal leadership and being able to understand what you're needing
to be the best version of yourself. As you mentioned,
introverts tend to enjoy smaller connections or fewer connections with people.
But even introverts have to have some life giving people
in their life. They just tend to like deeper, more connected,
(28:52):
more intimate type relationships, and so they tend to have
one or two people they're really close with, whereas extroverts
still need those people, those life givers, but they're often
the people who will get a group of life giving
friends together and have a party around it. And so
both need people. The number of people that they like
(29:12):
to have that deeper level connection with tends to be different,
and then how they enjoy the engagement, whether it's more
intimate or if it's more of a party vibe.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
I remember during COVID, one of the things that people
said is how exhausted they were, and everyone was quite
baffled by that because we were mostly just locked in
our houses doing nothing. We weren't able to run around,
we weren't able to see anyone, we weren't able to
in many cases even physically exercise. Why were we so
tired over that period?
Speaker 3 (29:44):
Yeah, I must have met the seven types of rest
framework in my book Sacred Rest. More people found out
about it during COVID, which is the exact opposite of
what you would think, as you mentioned, because people were
literally living the dream. They were working from home and
their pajamas is what every person in the world said
they wanted to do, and then once it happened, they
(30:06):
were like, this is tiring. And a big part of
that is be because we lost dollar boundaries. Being able
to physically go into the office then hop in your
car and come home set some really definite work life
boundaries that helped us be able to maintain some level
of work life integration. However, when the natural boundaries were
(30:26):
removed and then we had to personally manage our own boundaries,
we had no frame of reference for that. No one
knew how to have good, healthy personal work life boundaries.
Things started filtering over. People wouldn't take breaks where you
would take a break at work because you know, you
got us nine to five, you get the two fifteen
minute breaks. People would take them at home. It's like
(30:48):
I'm on the break, So nobody would even do that,
you know, Zoom or teams or whatever it was people
were using. It felt like it was easier, but we
didn't realize how much sensory overload we were experiencing when
we were setting in those meetings with fifteen screens showing
different people's backgrounds. We didn't realize how draining that was,
(31:09):
and we weren't stopping because we thought, oh, well, we're
sitting in our chair, why should I be tired. There
was just no frame of reference of how to manage that.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
And now that the pandemic is thankfully behind us, more
or less, there has been a remainder of hybrid work
for a lot of people who are in office based jobs.
And I've read a lot about for perhaps some of
the reasons you say they're still feeling very tired even
though they are even more now living the dream in
(31:42):
saying I've got certain days at work, I've got certain
days at home.
Speaker 3 (31:45):
Why is that most companies are really good at asking
people what it is that they desire to have to
be happy at their job and to remain What I
find is they don't really do a great job at
equipping them to be able to manage it in such
a way that it actually helps them to still feel energized.
(32:05):
Most of the time when we are working with the company.
What I'm finding when we do our initial assessment is
that the people within the company, they are passionate, usually
about the work they're doing, but they don't actually have
energy for what they're passionate about. So they're showing up
with their exhaustion. They're showing up as what we call
functional burnouts. They're in their seat, they're present, they're smiling
(32:29):
at the meetings, but they don't have any joy for
the work anymore. Their body feels bad even as they're
sitting in the chair. They don't even feel good as
they're sitting there doing the work. And when the work
is over, the work is not even at the highest
capacity of what they're capable of. It's just good enough.
It's what they can produce from their exhaustion. And so
(32:49):
I find that for a lot of people that are
making this transition, to be able to understand why they're
feeling that way, it's requiring them to begin with understanding
first what type of time that they actually are and
begin to do some habit stacking so that they can
integrate restorative practices in the middle of their busy day.
(33:11):
Not trying to find time for rest, not trying to
carve out time, because there isn't any extra time, it
just is what it is, but actually using the time
that they already have at work and layering in some
restorative practices so that they naturally start doing some of
these things without thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (33:29):
What are some examples. I've heard you talk about one
workplace where they made everybody have the same neutral zoom background.
Speaker 3 (33:37):
That's a simple one I think every company should do
to begin with, because when you think about it, in
the old days, when we were all going into offices
and sitting around to have a board meeting, everybody's in
the same room. We're all seeing the same sensory input. Now,
if you got ten people on your board that you're
sitting with, every single screen has a different image around it.
(33:59):
The wallpaper, the bed in the background, the bookshelf, whatever
it is.
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Slatmate walking past into towel.
Speaker 3 (34:05):
Yeah, and you're looking at all of this stuff in
your brain is processing it. Whether you are trying to
process it or not. It naturally is processing it, which
is exhausting. And so when you change it just to
a uniform background that your entire team or companies are using,
it recreates being in a room together because everybody's seeing
the same thing. Another example would be for those who
(34:28):
are trying to have more creativity and staying inspired. Think
about what are the images that actually make you feel inspired.
Whether it's images of the beach or beautiful locations, or
beautiful architecture or pictures, or it could be videos of something,
whatever it is, start bringing some of those elements actually
(34:50):
into your environment.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
I hope you're loving this conversation as much as I am,
and I hope you can understand why I was so
excited to bring Sondra into your ears and these concept
of seven types of rest. I've been feeling a lot
of fatigue lately over the past year, and particularly over
the last few months, so of course I'm going to
use this opportunity to ask the brilliant doctor an expert
(35:14):
about my own habits and discuss my own results from
the rest quiz that she's created. Yeah, I am tired, Soandra,
I want to ask you about a particular habit of
mine that everybody at work tases me for. But I
(35:38):
move my office furniture around a lot. I find it
does something for me. I'm not quite sure what what.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Is that about that makes me think about specifically an
emotional type of Uh. It's almost like art, because you
think about interior design, it's a form of art. Basically
it's a form of creativity. So you're using creative energy
in that moment because you're thinking, what this will look
better here. But you're also in the moment being able
(36:04):
to place things where you feel they belong, which means
you're being able to express your feelings in some way
because you get to determine this feels right in this
place here, wherever you move it to, or whatever you
exchange out. I find the same thing for people who
sometimes will say something just doesn't feel right, and they'll
(36:25):
go in and they'll change their outfit and come back
out with something else.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
I do that too.
Speaker 3 (36:30):
It's connecting with your authentic self. It's like, authentically, this
is not representing me in this moment, and I choose me.
I'm going to be represented, and I'm going to rearrange
whatever has to be rearranged to adequately and authentically reflect me,
which is basically at the core of emotional rest.
Speaker 1 (36:48):
That's so interesting. So something that feels soothing to you
on a basic level or RESTful, it's interesting to think
about what kind of rest that might be. It might
be creative rest, it might be mental rest. Are there
particular times in a woman's life where she's most likely
to feel exhausted. I'm thinking about childbirth, to little kids, divorce, manipause.
Speaker 3 (37:12):
Honestly, I would probably answer that by saying transition of
any sort, because any type of transition, the change itself
puts a level of stress that requires a reevaluation of
what rest is needed now, and I think too often
we get in our habits where like for myself, I
(37:33):
knew that I needed emotional rest, that was the one
that was deficient. However, when I started transitioning into like
right now, I spend a whole lot of time on
the road, traveling to speak at conferences and with organizations.
With that, I now realize that physical rest is one
I really have to pay more attention to because pulling
(37:54):
luggage and doing all the different things which I didn't
have to do when I was in the hospital. And
so I think any type of transition, good or bad,
requires us to take a new assessment of what's happening
right now with me.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
That's so interesting, because you know how people say that
moving house is very stressful. It's almost like an intersection
of all the different types of rest because physically it's
very demanding, and then mentally it's exhausting because all the
sort of muscle memory you have for reaching for a
light switch, grabbing a fork, looking for the peanut butter,
(38:30):
all of that's different. So suddenly you have to engage
mentally every time you switch on a light or turn
on a tap or look for a towel, And that
goes on for a really long time, and then emotionally
there are feelings about moving from one to the other.
Is that kind of an example of how you can
need a lot of different types of rest at once.
Speaker 3 (38:51):
Absolutely, especially as you mentioned, with changes like that, those
big transitions empty nest. I find a lot of women
when all the kids are out, and now it's like, Okay,
what do I do with my attention now that I
don't have people I'm having to take care of because
all of these different changes, changes and jobs. There's a
lot of women who I'm finding now who are stepping
(39:14):
up in roles and taking on new leadership positions and
starting their own companies and having to navigate that part
of it, the advancement within their career and the stressors
that come with that in realizing a higher level of
personal managements needed, not just managing people. Yes, that's a
necessary as well, but actual personal management the level of
(39:37):
self awareness of what they need so that they can
continue to grow their company. You know, one of the
things that I probably get the most upset probably isn't
the right word distressed, Probably is the right word over
emails that I get from women who say, I don't
really know if I want my company to scale or
to grow, or I don't really know if I want
(39:58):
to take that new leadership position because I'm already so tired,
and what is that going to look like if I
go to the next level. I like want to climb
through the wall when I hear something like that, that's
the exact opposite of living a thriving life.
Speaker 1 (40:13):
So what do you tell them?
Speaker 3 (40:14):
What I told them is, hey, let's take a look
at what's making you feel this way, and let's actually
get to the root cans of what's holding you back,
because that thought process of me actually being able to
be more beneficial to the world does not mean that
I have to sacrifice more of myself. There is a
way to actually build and be more fruitful and to
(40:37):
thrive in your life and not burn out in the process.
And so as a matter of taking those steps to
go down that path.
Speaker 1 (40:43):
Well, I did the rest quiz, and oh, I'm not
doing great. My big outliers my emotional You say that
anything over a twenty five is bad. You're feeling the
effects of the rest and you need to change. My
physical restcore is twenty six, my mental rest score is
(41:04):
thirty one, My emotional rest score is forty two. My
spiritual restcore is twenty three. So I'm doing quite well there. Spiritually.
I think that's since I became a grandmother. I really
love spending time with my granddaughter. That feels very spiritually
RESTful in a way that it didn't spending time with
my own children. There's something about being a grandparent that
(41:25):
is RESTful, even though it's not physically RESTful, it's RESTful
in another level. And also I'm very satisfied at work
in terms of my spiritual knowing my purpose. My social
restcore is thirty seven, and then my sensory and creative
rest scores are thirty five. So I've got some work to.
Speaker 3 (41:40):
Do heading toward that and burnt out these. But I mean,
your number is actually way better than mine. Then I
would probably say all of mine were probably close to
forty except for physical I mean, being a doctor is
not physically demanding. But yeah, my scores at the time
would have all been in the forties. And I think
the thing is we have to be aware. It's like
a snapshot of how you're feeling in the moment, and
(42:01):
so I always say, use it as a snapshot to
then look and reflect on what am I doing to
pour back into the area where I see this deficit,
because chances are some of those there are not very
many things you're doing on a consistent basis to pour
back into those areas, And so then it's just beginning
to layer some of those into your day, your week,
(42:23):
your math, depending on your schedule and different things.
Speaker 1 (42:26):
Can you tell me one thing to do for my
emotional risk goal, which is an ugly forty two what
can I do to emotionally rest or can you not
tell that without knowing more.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
Without knowing kind of a little bit more of your background.
But one of the things I would say is make
sure there's at least one person in your life. It
could be a friend, it could be a spouse, it
could be counselor or therapist, whatever, but one person in
your life where you never feel like you have to
pretty up what you say that you can literally say
(42:57):
it exactly the way you want to say it and
release it, and I'll just speak for myself. One of
the things for emotional rest that I had to learn
that the hardest part for me of emotional rest wasn't
sharing with people necessarily what I was feeling, like I'm mad,
I'm sad, all of that, but it was actually a
deeper level of vulnerability that I had to get to
(43:20):
to be able to actually feel emotionally rested. So in
that situation, like if I'm at the bedside with the
patient and they're dying and all of that, and of
course I'm sad for them and all telling my husband,
you know, at the end of the day that made
me sad didn't help me feel emotionally rested. What actually
helped me was actually going deeper and telling him what
(43:41):
the moment did inside of me. Like, for example, I
remember one time something happened. I don't remember what the
details were, but I remember saying to him in that moment,
I felt useless. I felt like all those twelve years
of medical practice did not tell me what I needed
to do to help this person. I could do nothing
but stand there and hold their hand while whatever was
(44:03):
going on inside of their body, because there was no
medical science to help me with this. And I was like,
I felt you, I felt like I had wasted all
of these years of my life. Now, that was a
really raw statement to say. And the thing is, it's
not something he could fix, you know, It's not like
he could pet me on the back and make it
all better. But I needed to tell the truth of
(44:24):
how I felt in that moment, and in saying it,
there was a freedom. It's like I don't have to
carry this feeling and feel bad for thinking it. I
can just say it and be okay with this is
how I'm feeling in the moment.
Speaker 1 (44:37):
So thank you so much. I've just looked at my
life in such a different way through the framework of
your seven types of rest, and it's all I do.
I just tell everybody about it, and it's made it
so much easier to replenish, because yeah, I sleep fine.
Sleep's never been a problem for me, and yet look
at my burnout. So thank you.
Speaker 2 (44:57):
Oh, I appreciate it's been enjoy chatting with you.
Speaker 1 (45:00):
Well, there we go. Did you have any big aha
moments listening to that, do you have now maybe a
better sense of exactly what kind of tired you might
be and what kind of rest you need. I was
really struck by the idea of emotional rest and that
the solution is to make sure that we have relationships
where we can be our most authentic selves. I'd never
(45:22):
thought about that before, and I'd never thought about how
emotionally taxing it is when you can't just be completely yourself.
And this idea of finding people that don't need anything
from us except for our vulnerability. I think maybe that's
why it's so RESTful being around dogs or cats. The
(45:43):
other thing that I thought was really interesting is when
she talked about any time of transition is particularly exhausting emotionally,
and I know that I really felt this at big
transitional times in my kids' lives as well as my own.
I guess because they are transitional times in my lives too,
like when my son left school, and then when he
(46:04):
moved out of home, when he got married, when my
daughter finished school. Those times have been really emotional and
really exhausting. And I never thought about that that the
idea of transition is emotionally exhausting. It can be so
hard to figure it out, can't it? Because when you're tired,
(46:26):
we often need more than one kind of rest. So
I highly recommend that you take these rest quiz that
doctor Sandra Tolton Smith has created to help you figure
out where you might have a bit of work to do.
Sondra also has a book, Say co Addressed. If you
want to have a look at that, we'll put a
link to where you can buy it in the show notes.
Do you know I've got a newsletter if you subscribe
(46:48):
to Babbel, I'm writing about the rest quiers this week.
I'll send you a link to it and just detail
all those seven different types of rest in case you
want to be reminded of them, because probably you were
listening to this when you were I don't know, driving, walking, cooking, sleeping, Well,
maybe you need it to sleep. Probably won't remember much
if you're asleep. Anyway, I'll put a link in the
(47:09):
show notes for my Babbel newsletter where I write about
all kinds of things. Off your pop, take the quiz,
call your bestdie, get some rest. This episode was produced
by Kimberly British and Naima Brown, with sound production by
Leah Paul, i'm mea Friedman and good night
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