“He that can take rest is greater than he that can take cities.” —Benjamin Franklin
Ask any physician and they will tell you rest is essential for physical health. When the body is deprived of sleep, it is unable to rebuild and recharge itself adequately. Your body requires rest.
Ask any athlete and they will tell you rest is essential for physical training. Rest is needed for muscles to repair themselves and prevent injury. This is true whether you run marathons, pitch baseballs, or climb rocks. Your muscles require rest.
Ask many of yesterday’s philosophers and they will tell you rest is essential for the mind. Leonardo da Vinci said, “Every now and then go away, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer.” And Ovid, the Roman poet, said, “Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” Your mind requires rest.
Ask most religious leaders and they will tell you rest is essential for the soul. Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Baha’i, and Wiccan (among others) teach the importance of setting aside a period of time for rest. Your soul requires rest.
Ask many corporate leaders and they will tell you that rest is essential for productivity. Forbes magazine recently wrote, “You can only work so hard and do so much in a day. Everybody needs to rest and recharge.” Your productivity requires rest.
Physicians, athletes, philosophers, poets, religious leaders, and corporate leaders all tell us the same thing: take time to rest. It is absolutely essential for a balanced, healthy life.
Yet, when you ask people in today’s frenzied culture if they intentionally set aside time for rest, most will tell you they are too busy. Even fewer would say they set aside any concentrated time (12-24 hours) for rest. There are just too many things to get done, too many demands, too many responsibilities, too many bills, and too much urgency. Nobody can afford to waste time resting in today’s results-oriented world.
Unfortunately, this hectic pace is causing damage to our quality of life. We are destroying every sense of our being (body, mind, and soul). There is a reason we run faster and work harder, but only fall further behind. Our lives have become too full and too out of balance. Somewhere along the way, we lost the essential practice of concentrated rest.
But we would be wise to reclaim the practice of resting one day each week. Consider the benefits of concentrated rest for your body, mind, and soul:
Healthier body. We each get one life and one body to live it in. Therefore, we eat healthy, we exercise, and we watch our bad habits. But then we allow our schedules to fill up from morning to evening. Rest is as essential to our physical health as the water we drink and the air we breathe.
Less stress. Stress is the perception that the situations we are facing are greater than the resources we have to deal with them—resources such as time, energy, ability, and help from others. Concentrated rest confronts stress in two ways. First, it reduces the demands of the situation. We have no demands on us as long as we have the ability to mentally let go of unfinished tasks. Secondly, rest reduces stress by increasing our resources, particularly energy.
Deeper relationships. A day set aside each week for rest allows relationships with people to deepen and be strengthened. When we aren’t rushing off to work or soccer practice, we are able to enjoy each other’s company and a healthy conversation. And long talks prove to be far more effective in building community than short ones on the ride to the mall.
Opportunity for reflection. Sometimes it is hard to see the forest through the trees. It is even more difficult to see the forest when we are running through the trees. Concentrated rest allows us to take a step back, to evaluate our lives, to identify our values, and determine if our life is being lived for them.
Balance. Taking one day of your week and dedicating it to rest will force you to have an identity outside of your occupation. It will foster relationships outside of your fellow employees. It will foster activities and hobbies outside work. It will give life and identity outside of your Monday-Friday occupation. Rather than defining your life by what you do, you can begin to define it by who you are.
Increased production. Just like resting physical muscles allows them opportunity to rejuvenate which leads to greater physical success, providing our minds with rest provides it opportunity to refocus and rejuvenate. More work is not better work. Smarter work is better work.
Reserve for life’s emergencies. Crisis hits everyone. Nobody who is alive is immune from the trials of life. By starting the discipline today of concentrated rest, you will build up reserves for when the unexpected emergencies of life strike and rest is no longer an option.
Properly developing a discipline of concentrated rest requires both inward and outward changes. Consider these steps to reclaiming the lost practice of weekly rest in your life.
1. Find contentment in your current life. Much of the reason we are unable to find adequate rest is because we are under the constant impression that our lives can and should be better than they are today. This constant drive to improve our standing through the acquisition of money, power, or skills robs us of contentment and joy. Ultimately, rest is an extension of our contentment and security. Without them, simplicity and rest is difficult, if not impossible. Stop focusing on what you don’t have and start enjoying the things you do. (tweet that)
2. Plan your rest. Rest will come only from intentional planning and planning rest will come only if it is truly desired. Put it on your calendar. Learn to say no to any tasks that attempt to take precedent. Plan out your day of rest by choosing creative activities that are refreshing and encourage relationships. Understand that true rest is different than just not working. As the Cat in the Hat wisely said, “It is fun to have fun but you have to know how.” Avoid housework. Plan meals in advance to help alleviate cooking responsibilities. And by all means, turn off your television and email.
3. Take responsibility for your life. You are not a victim of your time demands. You are the creator and acceptor of them. Refuse to complain or make excuses. Change your habits instead. Remember, you are only as busy as you choose to be. Leave “if only” excuses to the kids. If needed, alert your employer about your desire for rest and tell them you will be unavailable on that particular day.
4. Embrace simplicity. Embrace a lifestyle that focuses on your values, not your possessions. It is difficult to find rest when the housework is never finished, the yard needs to be mowed, or the garage needs to be organized.
5. Include your family. It is much easier to practice the discipline of concentrated rest if your family is practicing it too. The fact that this gets more difficult as your kids get older should motivate you to start as soon as possible.
6. Live within your income. A debtor is a slave to his creditor. It is difficult to find rest for your mind when you are deep in debt. The constant distress of your responsibility to another may preclude you from truly enjoying a day off. It is possible; it’s just more difficult. Don’t overspend your income, live within it.
7. Realize the shallow nature of a results-oriented culture. If you live in a results-oriented culture where productivity alone is championed, rest is countercultural. And thus, the saying goes, “If you rest, you rust.” Rest may even be seen as a sign of weakness by others. Unfortunately, that view of humanity’s role in this world is shallow. It is true that many of the benefits from concentrated rest are not tangible; but then again, only a fool believes all good things can be counted.
Rabbi Elijah of Vilna once said, “What we create becomes meaningful to us only once we stop creating it and start to think about why we did so.” The implication is clear. We could live lives that produce countless widgets, but we won’t start truly living until we stop producing and start enjoying.
Capture the lost practice of taking rest and start living again.
jean-marc says
Found this quote today, hope you enjoy :)
The simple person lives the way he breathes, with no more effort or glory, with no more affectation and without shame…. Simplicity is freedom, buoyancy, transparency. As simple as the air, as free as the air…. The simple person does not take himself to seriously or too tragically. He goes on his merry way, his heart light, his soul at peace, without a goal. without nostalgia, without impatience. The world is his kingdom, and suffices him. He has nothing to prove, since he has no appearances to keep up, and nothing to seek, since everything is before him. What is more simple than simplicity? What lighter It is the virtue of wise men and the wisdom of saints.
Andre Comte-Sponville
copied for the book HAPPINESS ( mathieu Ricard)
Paul says
I took my first economics class in 1962 and recall the professor talking about the benefits of automation. He stated that in 20 years (1982) we would have a four day work week. Was he correct, no now we have mostly two working parent families, people loosing their homes because they over extended and do not plan for the future. A four day week means four ten hour days- so we have three days of rest, me thinks not!
Yes we have more “stuff” but does it make life better? Many people can not be in a car without talking on the cell phone. We can’t have a meaningful conversation without someone checking their email, text messages or Facebook page. My sons are constantly checking their phones 7 day per week to see if a client is try to connect with them.
We have automation and technology but do we have time for quiet contemplation, rest for our bodies and minds. If we are to expand our consciousness our bodies and minds need time of quiet rest.
“Money does not buy happiness but it can make us comfortable in our misery”?
Gladys (The Pinay Mom) says
Such a good pointers. My husband is always go-go-go! and a lot of times it becomes pressure to our marriage (I might sound shallow) but all I want to do on my day off is to stay home and have rest. He usually wants to go somewhere or to invite some company for a grill out or a visit.
I like #6. Live within your income. It’s true having to many debts will strain your mind thinking how to pay them and without peace of mind is suffocating.
joshua becker says
Sounds like you and your husband have different modes of rest. Relationships can be restful and energizing for some (extroverts), but draining for others (introverts). I wouldn’t say your husband struggles with rest, he just experiences it different than you. I’d communicate about that—and look for selfless compromise.
Tin says
#6 is very very important. Thank you for mentioning that! :-)
By the way, I have included you in this list of 5 most enriching minimalism websites – http://www.greenfudge.org/2014/04/28/most-enriching-minimalism-websites/
Thanks for the inspiration, Joshua.
John says
Joshua,
Thank you for this great reminder that rest is essential for a healthy life. One important point you made is that rest provides an “opportunity for reflection”. We need the time away from noise and distraction to contemplate the things that matter in life and reflect on we can best use our energy and resources.
Rest is good for us!
John
http://www.thehillofbeans.com
Sam Collins says
The article should say…
“The Lost Practice of Resting On The Sabbath Each Week”
Even though there is a benefit to resting any day, there is a much more recreative and divinely inspired benefit with resting on the seventh day.
His laws don’t change.
joshua becker says
Hmm, interesting thought Sam. By Sabbath are you referring to Saturday or Sunday? But I may disagree with your comment either way. I’m sure glad every member of the police force, fire department, and utility companies don’t subscribe to this thinking. I believe the principle takes precedence over the specific day of the week.
Janet Kempf says
Joshua, it sounds like Sam was trying to make the point that this post merely reinforces a practice and viewpoint held by most major religions. It certainly sounded like it to me when I read it this morning. For anyone familiar with the 10 Commandments or religion in general, the parallels are evident. And most religions do recognize that in this day and age, some people have to work on the traditional Sabbath, be it Saturday or Sunday. Not all but most. Religious education is my job and I work every Sunday. I would certainly hope that police officers and firemen enter those professions with the understanding that they will have to work on the traditional “days of rest”.
I read your blog on a regular basis and enjoy the content. But I must tell you, your answer to Sam seemed a bit dismissive.
Judy says
Janet, I agree :(
joshua becker says
If that is the case, apologies to each of you: Sam, Janet, and Judy. I had no intention of being (or sounding) dismissive. My goal was just the opposite: to interact with Sam’s comment.
When I read Sam’s first comment, I agreed that the principle of rest is Biblical. I even pointed out the long religious-heritage of finding rest in the original post.
But as I read and continue to re-read Sam’s second comment, it sounds like he is moving beyond the principle and is specifically contending it is more spiritual and beneficial to rest on specific days of the week rather than others. In his words, the Sabbath is “more recreative and divinely-inspired.”
And I simply disagree with that assertion.
LZA says
I practice the Sabbath on Sunday. And the police, fire department, hospitals etc, are the pulling the oxen out of the ditch. they are jobs of mercy. But nobody needs to be at Bed Bath and Beyond on a Sunday. Nobody.
priest's wife (@byzcathwife) says
exactly! We stay away from all businesses until at least 1 o’clock on Sundays- but usually we stay away the entire day…it just takes planning
Sam Collins says
The sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath. It was given to us as a memorial of God’s creative (re-creative) work, both of the world and within each of us. It is a hinge in the 10 commandments that balances the first and last aspects of Love for God and Love for man.
Exodus 20:8-11 –
“Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates: For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”
Lastly, and not leastly, it is the only part of the 10 commandments that starts out with the words …”Remember”, as if he knew we would tend to forget the blessing he gave us.
Caroline Starr Rose says
I was telling my husband just yesterday what a gift practicing the Sabbath is. I know I’ve got a book, some crosswords, and a nap waiting for me on Sunday afternoons. It’s good for me on so many levels.
joshua becker says
My parents have taken naps on Sunday afternoons as long as I can remember—they still do.
Eric Ungs says
“This constant drive to improve our standing through the acquisition of money, power, or skills robs us of contentment and joy.” It robs us of the present moment that is ultimately where we live life. This was a big realization for me this past year. Slowing down to live presently, and simply, versus always rushing to improve thinking that was the answer to joy. Not the case. This is a beautiful post. Thanks for sharing!
Amy says
“Stress is the perception that the situations we are facing are greater than the resources we have to deal with them..”
Wow, This statement really hit me. I think I need to put this up on my wall as a reminder that, with God, I have all the resources and more that I need to deal with anything I face in life.
Thank you.
Nicole Cipriano says
This is the quote that stuck with me as well!!!