“What is without periods of rest will not endure.” —Ovid
Recently, I spent a few weeks on vacation. The time was filled with travel, reconnecting with family, playing golf, swimming, sleeping, and reading. As you can probably imagine, it was quite enjoyable. But more than that, it was desperately needed.
Consider the benefits that rest offers:
- a healthier body.
- more balance.
- less stress.
- deeper relationships.
- better opportunity to evaluate life’s direction.
- a new, fresh outlook.
- increased productivity.
Yet, despite all the proven benefits of rest, intentionally setting aside regular time for rest is a practice that has become undervalued and underappreciated in today’s culture. We have become overworked, overstressed, and exhausted. Yet, Sabbath (setting aside one day each week for rest) remains a dying practice that less and less people practice regularly (never mind the idea of actually taking a two-week vacation).
Overlooking the importance of rest is certainly not unique to our modern society. But our culture has made it increasingly difficult to take rest without specific intentionality.
Consider some of the factors prevalent in our modern society that argue against the idea of rest:
• Rest has become confused with laziness. We live in a society that praises those who work 60hrs/week and makes faulty assumptions about those who work 40. We have confused rest with laziness. And while too much rest may indeed be an indicator of sloth, the regular practice of finding rest is not.
• The desire for money has become unquenchable. Modern society loves money. We love it to a point that we will sacrifice much of ourselves to gain more of it. Some sacrifice morals, character, or family. Others consider rest a fair trade… and will gladly sacrifice it at the altar of the almighty dollar.
• Success is measured incorrectly. Similarly, we have begun to measure success by the amount of cash in savings, the size of our homes, or the model of our cars. The nicer one’s lot in life, the more successful they must be. Unfortunately, this is a faulty measure of success. The true test of success should be measured in significance rather than success. But often times finding significance requires us to rest long enough to recalibrate our lives around the things that matter most.
• We live in a world that is always “on”. While electricity may have made it easier to work late into the night, the Internet has surrounded us with opportunities and relationships 24 hours/day. Today’s world never stops. And when the possibility to make money every hour of the day is combined with the desire to do so, rest quickly gets pushed aside.
• A false sense of urgency surrounds us at every moment. We live in a world that floods our minds with so much information that it has become difficult to sort out the important from the unimportant. As a result, the urgent needs of the day crowd out the important. And rest puts up little fight against the urgent.
• Our minds require distraction. Our minds have become addicted to stimulation and validation. As a result, it has become increasingly difficult to turn off E-mail, Facebook, or Twitter… not to mention cell phones, televisions, or the Internet. And when our minds begin to require distraction, rest becomes an increasingly difficult state to achieve.
• Rest cannot be rushed. Modern society loves shortcuts. We desire 15-minute abs, 30-minute meals, and 1-hour photos. Unfortunately, rest can never be rushed. It must be entered deliberately and allowed to complete its cycle in due time. By definition, this requires patience… and a cleared schedule.
• A misunderstanding that rest is purely physical. Rest is physical. But it is more than that. It is mental, emotional, and spiritual. It is an understanding that the world is going to survive without you. It is an inner strength that allows you to disconnect from accomplishing “work” and focus on yourself and those around you. It is not mere physical leisure. It is rest: body and soul.
I have worked hard to keep a day of rest as an important part of my life and weekly routine. But it is an upward battle that requires relentless intentionality—we live in a culture that has far too often underappreciated its value.
I am a fan of active rest but focusing on me time. I try once a day to fit in a walk, be it 30 minutes or 3 hrs in the outdoors, be it a hill walk or a low level walk. Either by myself or with a friend. It affords me time with only nature for distraction. I carry a phone for emergency purposes only or for taking pics. This time, however Long, allows me time to desires and digest the day. I mentally figure things out without distraction then I empty my mind and live in the moment. I find it therapeutic and allows me to recharge before going home and becoming once again mother, wife, caregiver. It costs nothing but the most precious commodity we have, which is not money but time. It helps me reconnect and as a result I function better in all roles. Fresh air, nature and rolling hills. No calls, no emails, no demands, no electronics. Just me and nature. It’s bliss
I agree wholeheartedly. I have been busy decluttering my house and minimalising my life in so many ways. I now have time to rest and it makes such a difference.
I agree 100% and think that there should be more pieces like this to reverse this awful pressure to be successful all the time, no matter how many sacrifices you make regarding your family and rest. Of course, it is up to every person to decide, but it’s also about our common values as a society. If we only focus on success – prominent authors, inventors and sportsmen without the look on their lives – when teaching students at schools and universities, people will only come to such realizations through breakdowns and burnouts.
Thank you so much for this piece, it’s a great one and also an eye opener in all ramifications. ?
Totally unheard of in today’s 24/24 virtual life :0( So irrelevant )0:
I too had the husband who traveled, and three children with very different needs. I volunteered a few hours most every week, homeschooled 4 years, and kept pretty busy all the days, but I did things I enjoyed. I subbed with special needs children (part time) a couple years, I subbed H S a few years, I taught Sunday School, and I took my children outdoors to play or explore the woods and parks when ever the weather was tolerable. It is fine to be “busy” when you share the things that are enjoyable. (we also kept an early, consistent bed time). I earned very little money but I did earn great relationships with my kids (and I never sent a “chatty” Christmas card telling how we stayed “busy” all year). Priorities. The simple things are the best.
Same?
I do appreciate being reminded of the value of rest. I also, find the approach of this particular post to be overly simplistic in light of the realities of those of us who have to work multiple jobs, or those of us that might be in the thick of caregiving for children, aging parents, or ill family members. You are still right: we need rest. We require it. But how and why we get around to making it for ourselves – I think you’ve missed that for a lot of us. In saying this, I am making assumptions: that your intended audience is more than the financially affluent reader. The financially affluent reader may be able to “just do it” and make vacations happen. I hope, however, you are interested in a wider audience. You mean we’ll. That much is clear.
The piece reads like wisdom from a middle schooler who really is trying but hasn’t experienced the fatigue and complexity of physical and emotional labor in the familial network, or the reality of providing for themselves in the gig economy. I’d encourage you to research more broadly as well as clarify who your audience is. Keep at it! Props for putting your creative material into the world. That’s the first step!
Your comment reads like a playground insult. This piece is spot on, but your arrogance and ignorance blinds you from seeing that. I am also not affluent but that doesn’t make this wrong or short-sighted. However, conceding to be a slave to the system, is short sighted. Your life is short, stop and think about it once in a while.
As a “normal, not financially affluent reader”, I really enjoy this article. I don’t think he meant that we have to take lavish vacations every year. I am a full time working woman, a mom to a 3 year old, and a wife who is pregnant. My schedule is just the right amount of busy. I don’t have the time or money to take long vacations every year. I have in the past, but right now is not the time. I find rest in kicking up my feet for 20 minutes and reading a book, from painting my nails and watching a YouTube video, from sitting in the car for 5 minutes after a long day of work. Rest in small burst is still rest. You can still rest while having a family. We simply choose to stay in or have a relaxing day instead of running errands.
I feel that perhaps you are missing the deeper message..You dont have to take a whole day or even hours on end to caregive the self. even a few stolen moments in the restroom at work give me time to breath and rest. Even in the car one can pull over for 15 minutes to do breathwork and close ones eyes. There are all kinds of apps for your phone that can assist you with that. I am not of the elite who can take long lavish time out but I can finsd time for a massage once a month or a Reiki session and I can absolutly find 15 minutes to stretch my body a breath. I believe that is what the message is. If your just doing out of duty and not taking care of the self there will come a day when you are depleted ..that day is when respentment begins to rise up and what follows is a manifestaion of disease. NOTHING is worth it…
a good 30 minutes in the wild outdoor gives me enough rest for my day. it would feel like I have done all what i needed to get done for that day. i find it so relaxing to do some easy peasy gardening like watering, trimming trees, cut stems, i can see the benefits in such a way of using time doing “nothing” just only what you love. so worth it.
Helene, while your points are valid, rest is a necessity for everyone…you know what, nevermind, rather than writing a long comment, I’m going to put the phone down and rest.
Blessings,
Sean
It’s certainly spot on and I’m not going to waste my time trying to explain to you why. Your negativity alone was already exhausting. Good read for someone like me who needs rest badly, physically, emotionally and spiritually.
It sounds like you are enmeshed in a co-dependent relationship because you are parenting as if you are single. He can watch all the kids for three hours one night a week so you can nap or go to the library or do coffee with a friend. If he refuses, why not trade parenting responsibilities with a girl friend who also has children so that you get a break at least every other week. Martyrs glorify their work, and avoid rest because they know better than everyone else. Eventually they burn out. Don’t do that.
Actually some of ‘us’ martyers may enjoy work. The nice pay is a by product not a means to an end.
I took a gap year when my 13 year employment was terminated following restructuring and thankfully I got a severance package. Many couldn’t understand the concept of taking 1 year off from work and urged me to search for another job immediately. I was tempted to though I felt completely burned, but am glad I didn’t. The time off the career rat race has given much needed perspective on life and the many important things I neglected and sacrificed at the altar of money and career. I will be returning to school next year to study biblical counselling in order to help others struggling as I was.
It begins by realizing that our culture largely values shallow, meaningless things. Kids today live mostly indoors, and know little about nature. We live in a world of massive energy consumption, where everything is wrapped in plastic, and many Americans don’t even know where they are on the face of the earth. We follow those with the loudest voices and the least to say, as opposed to those who listen, learn, and have truth to share. We obliterate natural beauty and replace it with gaudy garbage, and we are rapidly killing our one and only home.
We need more rest, and a lot more reflection on the awesomeness of being.
“The most beautiful and most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the source of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead.”
–Albert Einstein
Thank you for writing this. I’m about to take 5 days to unplug and sleep and rest. I am physically, emotionally and mentally drained. I lack compassion, empathy, any appropriate social filters and sometimes even common sense. Yet, people look at me like I have 8 heads and can’t believe they can’t contact me. I finally said the only one I want to connect with is ME!
Rest is crucial. I take rest every day, at least for a short while. Some days, I am able to disconnect from my worries and enter a state of awe. Other days my mind remains attached to the mundane. You are completely right that modern society has made it increasingly difficult to take rest and that it is an upward battle to achieve it. But to achieve regular rest is to achieve more balance. And balance is what this planet’s inhabitants so desperately need.
I have friends who proudly identify themselves as “Type A”, as if that were a state we should all be striving for.
So true.
I would love love love to take one day a week and have it be 100% handheld/video technology free – i.e. no cell phone, no tablets, no tv, no computer. I foresee 100% abstinence being absolutely disastrous, unfortunately. I’d lose my mind just listening to the kids ask for some form of technology every 5 minutes. We do go camping periodically and there are no tablets allowed then, but the tv (with dvd’s) is still available. We’d have to have every minute of the day completely filled with activity to prevent people from using their technology, and that kind of defeats the purpose of resting, does it not? It’s a grand idea that I’ll continue to brainstorm – but you nailed it. Our minds seem to need constant stimulation anymore and unfortunately, conversation doesn’t seem to be enough.
It is in the Bible. to take a rest from all of our labors. So, when GOd made man in His image, it was part of His great plan that man should have a rest. GOd knows what is best for His creatures. He loves us. When we don’t heed GOd’s words, we get sick. Most of all, GOd said: “Come to Me all you who are heavily ladden and I will give you rest. FOr My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”
Thank you so much.
Thank you for posting this! I have a really hard time with this. During the winter I substitute teach. I also have four kids, and even though I try to limit their activities so it doesn’t drive us nuts, we still find ourselves rushing dinner and running off to something multiple nights a week. Add to that family/friend obligations on weekends, and by the time June rolls around I’m exhausted!
By the end of the school year I felt completely burnt out, and as a result, I booked less camping for spring/July than I normally do, I didn’t race off to the beach a few days a week like I imagined I would, and I haven’t been biking every morning to maximize summer holidays. I think what I really needed was just decompression. So we kind of vegged through July. The kids played in the blow up pool in the back yard, we went to the park a few times, they crafted and read, and played with enormous piles of lego (we limit TV), and the whole time I’ve been feeling so guilty that I can’t just get motivated to “enjoy” summer, that I have actually kind of ruined the first half of summer for myself. I’ve been feeling like I’ve just wasted my kids time. And it’s not even like they’re complaining! Why are we so programmed to think that if we’re not burning through our “summer bucket list,” we’re simply squandering our time?
I’ve been trying to look at it differently, that the downtime is what we needed. We have a lengthy family camping trip planned that starts next week, and I know we’ll be busy with that, so what if we just moseyed around in July, right?
Just wish it was easier to “rest” without feeling crummy about it!
That is wonderful!
This is such an important subject. Not resting or taking holidays seems to have become some kind of badge of honour. Yet it is destructive in so many ways and on so many different levels with a terrible impact on indvidiuals, families and communities. I feel we need to get back to building life on true values in order to help start prioritising what is really most important.
Joshua, our kids need rest as well. I have five kids and we have made a very conscious effort for the past 19 years to set aside a day of rest. We don’t shop or play organized sports on that day, but we do share a meal and when they were younger, we literally rested on Sunday. There are far too many kids stressed out with no example of how to rest because they have never seen it practiced. It takes planning and effort, but it is doable and doesn’t cost anything.
A great article. I, like many others above, are working on resting but find it a battle sometimes. One thing I have found helpful is to actually mark out time in my diary before the week begins – I write ‘my time’ and I strive to put nothing else on in that space. I try to treat that time in my diary as if it is a medical appointment that I need to attend and cannot double book with anything else. It’s not always easy, but the weeks that I hold on to ‘my time’, I am so much better for it.
I wonder how you should tell between sufficient rest and too much (the indicator of sloth you mention). I guess sometimes you may be inactive, but not “resting”, because of life stresses, which would make you feel like you need more “rest” when you are already getting a lot of it. I always feel exhausted, but for many people, my amount of “rest” would probably be enough. I think I’m also burned out at work, so that doesn’t help.
Just imagine – having to wait 1 hour or 2 weeks for the photos you just took!
I’m resting now. A quiet period in the afternoon has always been important to me.
This is perfect. I’m on a business /leisure trip and in the hotel thinking okay I’m being totally useless and not accomplishing anything. I work very hard and I think my Supervisor orchestrated this 3 day trip to force me to rest and visit with my son who attends college here in town as an added bonus. I need to learn how to shut my mind off for restful periods… but it is super difficult.
Megyn
I hear you.
Sometimes loving God means loving him with all our strength through hard times. Financial hardship is a very difficult thing to “rest” through, because by its very nature, it requires more work from you. Instead of so much resting, which you need weekly, and should enforce for your long term health, try working “long” not hard. Meaning try to always be doing work in a calm way that somehow benefits your situation. One tiny step of faithfulness at a time leads to a clearly marked path that will make your next endeavor that much easier. As Elizabeth Elliot said, “what is the next right thing?” Then do it. Soon you will find restful peace.
Thanks for an amazing post. I have been following you and leo for some time now. But its difficult to apply what you say. I am an anaesthesiologist working in government hospital in a developing country and i have a 2 year old. I don’t work long hours because of money but its just the way my duty hours are. I am always tired but how to take rest?
The true test of success should be measured in significance rather than [financial] success. But often times finding significance requires us to rest long enough to recalibrate our lives around the things that matter most.