We talk a lot about exercise. How often should we train? How many steps should we do? How much weight should we lift? How long should we hold a yoga pose? But there is another part of health and fitness that we don’t talk about nearly enough: rest.
And I don’t just mean stopping. I don’t mean collapsing on the sofa at the end of a busy day, watching television while simultaneously scrolling through your phone. I mean genuine, deep, restorative rest — the kind of rest where the body feels safe enough to soften, the breath slows down, the muscles release and the nervous system begins to settle. Rest isn’t the opposite of fitness. Rest is part of fitness.
Whenever we exercise, we create a demand on the body. Resistance training challenges our muscles. Cardiovascular exercise challenges the heart and lungs. Yoga can challenge strength, mobility, balance and concentration. Exercise provides the stimulus, but many of the adaptations we want from training happen during the periods between our workouts. This is why more exercise isn’t necessarily better exercise. Training and recovery belong together: challenge the body, recover, adapt and repeat.
Recovery isn’t only about giving your muscles a day off. We also need to think about our nervous system. Our autonomic nervous system helps regulate many of the processes happening automatically within us. Two important branches are the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.
The sympathetic nervous system helps mobilise us for action and is associated with our familiar fight-or-flight response. We need it. It helps us get out of bed, exercise, concentrate, respond to challenges and take action. The problem isn’t that sympathetic activation is bad; the problem is when we spend too much of our lives switched on and don’t give ourselves enough opportunities to settle again.
This is where the parasympathetic nervous system becomes so important. It is sometimes described as our “rest-and-digest” system because it supports the quieter processes associated with rest, digestion and recovery. When we begin to settle, our breathing can become slower, our heart rate can reduce and the body can move away from a state of constant alertness.
We don’t want to be relaxed every second of our lives. What we want is flexibility — the ability to rise when life requires energy and come back down when the challenge has passed. Being able to move between activation and relaxation is an important part of wellbeing.
One of the things I find fascinating is that you can be completely still and yet not really be resting. You can lie on the sofa watching television while thinking about tomorrow, answering messages, scrolling through social media, worrying about money and mentally replaying something that happened earlier in the day. Your body may have stopped moving, but your mind is still receiving stimulation.
There is nothing wrong with watching television. Sometimes curling up on the sofa with something we enjoy is exactly what we need. But it isn’t necessarily the same thing as intentional deep rest. Deep rest asks us to reduce stimulation, close our eyes, soften the body, slow down and stop consuming information for a little while. Sometimes it means simply allowing ourselves to do nothing.
For people who are accustomed to being constantly busy, that can feel surprisingly difficult. We can become so used to stimulation that silence and stillness initially feel uncomfortable. Learning to rest can actually become a practice in itself.
This is one of the things I love about yoga. Yoga teaches us something our culture can sometimes forget: doing nothing can be a practice. Savasana can look like the easiest pose in a yoga class because you simply lie there, but for some people it is one of the hardest. There is nowhere to go, nothing to achieve and no next exercise. We practise allowing the body to become heavy and supported. Instead of constantly asking our body to perform, we allow it to receive.
Yoga Nidra takes this idea even further. Often translated as “yogic sleep”, Yoga Nidra is a guided practice of deep relaxation. You normally lie somewhere comfortable while being guided through awareness of the body, breath and other aspects of your experience. You don’t have to be good at meditation and you don’t have to make anything happen. You listen, notice and allow. For people who find sitting meditation difficult, guided relaxation can be a wonderful introduction to conscious rest.
Our breathing can also become a bridge between body and mind. When we’re stressed, frightened or rushing, our breathing often changes without us even noticing. Intentional slow, comfortable breathing — without forcing enormous breaths — can help create the conditions for relaxation.
Try something very simple. Lie somewhere comfortable, close your eyes and let your shoulders drop. Relax your jaw and allow your breath to become quiet and gentle. Rather than trying to control every breath, simply notice it moving in and out. With each exhalation, imagine allowing a little more tension to leave your body. Stay there for five or ten minutes. There is nothing to achieve.
If you find it difficult to do this alone, guided meditation and relaxation apps can be really helpful. Calm offers guided meditation, relaxation, breathing practices and sleep content, while Insight Timer has a huge library of guided meditations, Yoga Nidra, music, breathing and relaxation practices. Even putting on a ten-minute guided practice can help create a clear transition between the busyness of your day and a period of genuine rest.
If you’re beginning a fitness programme, it can be tempting to think that progress happens only when you’re working. One more workout, one more run, one more class. But recovery belongs in the programme too. A good fitness routine includes challenging days, easier days and rest. It includes sleep, good nutrition and hydration, and time for muscles and connective tissues to recover. I also believe it should include moments when our nervous system isn’t being bombarded with demands.
Perhaps one of the hardest things is learning to rest without guilt. Many of us have been taught, consciously or unconsciously, that productivity is good and rest is lazy. So even when we’re exhausted, we can feel guilty for stopping. But rest isn’t laziness. There is a difference between avoiding life and consciously allowing yourself to recover from it. You don’t have to earn every moment of rest by exhausting yourself first. Rest is a normal biological need.
Try creating a simple daily deep-rest ritual. You don’t necessarily need an hour. Start with ten minutes. Turn off the television. Put your phone somewhere else. Dim the lights. Lie down somewhere comfortable. Perhaps put a bolster underneath your knees and cover yourself with a blanket. Close your eyes, relax your face, soften your shoulders and notice your breathing. You might listen to a Yoga Nidra, practise meditation, use a gentle breathing exercise or simply enjoy the silence.
For ten minutes, give yourself permission to have absolutely nothing to achieve. Then notice how different that feels from simply sitting in front of a screen.
True wellbeing isn’t about relentlessly pushing ourselves. It’s about developing a relationship with our body and learning to listen to what it needs. Sometimes the body needs movement. Sometimes it needs strength. Sometimes it needs challenge. Sometimes it needs food or sleep. And sometimes it needs us simply to stop.
Yoga teaches us both effort and ease. Fitness teaches us training and recovery. Life requires both action and rest.
Perhaps becoming healthier isn’t always about doing more and more. Perhaps part of becoming healthier is learning to recognise when we’ve done enough.
Move when your body needs movement. Challenge yourself when you’re ready for challenge. And when it’s time to rest, allow yourself to rest deeply.
Because recovery isn’t time away from your wellbeing.
Recovery is part of your wellbeing.
Guided relaxation and meditation
Calm: https://www.calm.com/
Insight Timer: https://insighttimer.com/
