In our fast-paced world, rest has become a crucial aspect of maintaining our mental and physical well-being. While sleep is the most well-known form of rest, there are other types that are equally essential for our overall health. Understanding and incorporating the seven types of rest into our daily lives can help us recharge and stay focused, leading to increased sense of achievement and well-being. In this article, we’ll explore these seven types of rest and provide tips for incorporating them into your routine.
Physical Rest
Physical rest is the most familiar form of rest, and it’s often associated with sleep. However, it can also include other activities that allow our muscles and joints to recover from the strains and stresses of daily life. Examples include stretching, yoga, and massage. Incorporating physical rest into your day can reduce fatigue, improve muscle recovery, and lower the risk of injury.
Mental Rest
Mental rest is essential for reducing brain fog and maintaining focus throughout the day. This type of rest involves taking breaks from cognitive tasks, such as problem-solving, decision-making, and creative thinking. Meditation, mindfulness exercises, and stepping away from screens can all help in providing mental rest. Aim for periodic short breaks during the day and create a routine that allows your mind to recharge regularly. Taking a mindful tea break or a mindful moment outside can really make a difference.
Emotional Rest
Emotional rest focuses on processing and expressing our feelings to maintain emotional balance. This type of rest can be achieved through journaling, therapy, or simply having open conversations with a trusted friend or family member. By addressing our emotions and allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, we can experience relief and a sense of emotional well-being. It’s often said in mindfulness practice; what we feel, we heal.
Sensory Rest
Sensory rest is essential for counteracting the constant bombardment of stimuli from our environment, such as noise, light, and screen time. To practice sensory rest, create a calm and quiet space where you can retreat and unplug. Activities like reading a book, taking a walk in nature, or closing your eyes for a few minutes can all help to reduce sensory overload and provide restorative benefits. Earplugs can also be really valuable to increase sensory rest when you share space with others and it’s harder to find quiet.
Social Rest
Social rest is the act of finding balance between socialising and solitude. This type of rest can involve spending time with people who recharge your energy or seeking out moments of solitude to regroup and reflect. Identify which relationships in your life provide support and comfort, and make an effort to prioritise those connections.
Creative Rest
Creative rest is the process of rejuvenating our creative energies and nurturing our imagination. It involves stepping away from our usual creative outlets and engaging in activities that inspire and invigorate us. Visiting an art gallery, attending a concert, or exploring a new environment can all help to stimulate our creativity and provide the rest our minds need to stay innovative.
Spiritual Rest
Spiritual rest is the practice of connecting with a higher power, whether that is through religion, spirituality, or a sense of purpose in life. This type of rest can help us find meaning and foster a sense of inner peace. Spiritual rest can be achieved through prayer, meditation, or participating in religious or spiritual activities that resonate with your beliefs.
Incorporating the seven types of rest into our daily lives can help us maintain a balanced and healthy lifestyle. By understanding the different ways we can rest, we can address our individual needs and prioritise self-care. So, take a moment to assess which types of rest are missing from your life and begin to create a well-rounded rest routine that supports your overall well-being.
Rest doesn’t need to be another thing that’s added to your ‘to do’ list. Once you identify which types of rest you need more of, try adding micro-doses of rest into your day as often as possible. Leave yourself post-it note reminders, set alarms on your phone, add mini rest breaks to your calendar – whatever it takes to create the habit of healthy rest.
Join us at The Well Nest for regular workshops, classes and retreats to help you find rest and self-care.
Vegan & Sustainable Living Festival!
Exciting things are happening at Bishton Hall this month – join us for our first Vegan & Sustainable Living Festival! Come along and try some fantastic vegan street food, shop sustainably, discover amazing local makers and crafters and join me in the Wellbeing Tipi for some retail therapy, self-care therapies and workshops.
Main Marquee
We have so much going on at the Vegan & Sustainable Living Festival, it’s hard to know where to start!
On the lawn we have a large marquee housing around 30 vegan and sustainable living traders. Here you’ll find things such as candles, bath and body care, pies, Turkish food, jewellery, general stores, wood crafts, sauces and pickles, eco gifts, recycled and up cycled crafts, wines, doughnuts, preserves, flowers…the list goes on.
There is also a presentation area in the main marquee where you can hear traders talk about their sustainable projects, vegan living and see demonstrations and taste products. There will be a new speaker every hour on each day of the festival, including our very own Charles Hanson at 3 pm each day giving talks on antiques and buying sustainably.
Holistic Wellbeing Tipi
Take a walk around the grounds and you’ll find a magical Nordic Tipi housing the Yoga and Wellbeing area. Come and see me there for retail therapy, mini holistic treatments in the Tipi, sustainable themed workshops and a chance to win prizes.
You can shop all things yoga and meditation – mats, yoga blankets, yin pillows, blocks, carry straps, meditation cushions and eye pillows. A vast supply of incense and incense holders, diffuser oils, oil burners, bath and body care, mala beads, mandala cards, salt lamps, candles and gifts!
On offer during the festival will be mini holistic treatments such as hand massages and Indian head massage. Workshops on creating your own natural deodorant and aromatherapy body scrubs. There will also be Sound Baths to relax and unwind.
Artisan Courtyard and Street food
Come and visit our wonderful artisan courtyard of shops and makers:
The Quirky Emporium for sustainable furnishings, gifts, handmade candles and items for the garden.
Mercia Spirit Lab for tastings, artisan gin and whisky, cocktail masterclasses (!), gift vouchers and experience days.
LuvFelt for fabulous handcrafted works of art, clothing and accessories, bird house pods, cards and tea towels.
S&P Watercolours for wonderful works of art inspired by the natural world as well as cards, mugs, cushions and tea towels.
Earth & Fire Ceramics for classes and workshops in pottery and throwing techniques as well as handmade works of art, sculpture and gifts.
Ivy House for a huge range of homewares and gifts, cards and handmade candles.
Kate Bennett Fine Art Photography for wonderful landscape photography, inspirational and occasion cards and giftware.
For the vegan festival there will be street food from Nelly’s Delhi (gorgeous Indian food), No Baloney (vegan sausages), Where’s the Catch (vish and chips), Hugo’s Bar (ice cream, jacket potatoes, hot and cold drinks, milkshakes), stews and soups from Mercia Spirit Lab. Yum!!
Children’s Crafts
Did I mention there will be FREE children’s crafts all weekend? Wander over to our fabulous historic orangery and find Outdoor Answer offering children’s crafts throughout the weekend. Let your little ones try making seed bombs, making leaf pledges for Earth Day (Friday 22nd April) and connecting to nature. Bishton Hall has fabulous grounds including a Temple Garden, woodland and amazing historic trees – let their imaginations run wild.
Cannot wait to see you there!
Letting Go and Manifesting the New
Halloween isn’t just about costumes and sweets. Samhain, as the festival is traditionally known, is a wonderful time for acknowledging the past and letting go before calling in your hopes and dreams for the future.
October’s unique workshop will bring together the best of the season and the energetic changes to give you a boost into the Autumn with a fresh outlook and high spirits. The workshops uses aromatherapy, sound waves and yogic sleep to help you relax deeply before calling your hopes into being.
Your body, mind and spirit all benefit from this practice of aroma, relaxation, meditation and sound therapy. It’s a complete package for renewal! This year, Samhain falls between the date at which Venus is closest to the earth (29th October) and a new moon (4th November) making it the perfect time to cleanse, release and turn our energy towards the new.
This workshop will be an opportunity to use ritual and relaxation to make the most of the spiritual and celestial energies available to make a new start. We will begin our workshop session by crafting a personal blend of bath salts, essential oils and natural ingredients to take away and use over the next 30 days to repeat our intentions for the future whilst practicing self-care. You will be encouraged to set intentions and affirmations for the future as you build your self care bath ritual blend.
We will then begin a yoga nidra session – deep relaxation bringing us to the cusp of sleep so that our consciousness becomes susceptible to creativity, intuition and release on a deeper level. This is a passive practice, so no physical postures are practiced – it is a guided visualisation and relaxation practice. Get comfortable under blankets and drift away.
We will then transition into a gong bath to let the sound waves wash over us, cleansing the mind and body and allowing us to start anew.
The focus of this workshop will be based around the energies available to us from the cosmos at this point in time:
Samhain/Halloween – a time of transition from the old to the new. A slowing down of one cycle and the beginning of another. Coming into a deep rest before calling our dreams and wishes into reality.
Venus – A focus on the heart chakra and self compassion. Looking deeply at our own happiness and how we gather and expend our personal resources. We will be able to utilise the divine feminine/shakti energy of the provider, nurturer and fierce protector to help manifest our goals
New moon – Heart chakra energy from the new moon helps us to align for a new beginning and cleanses us of whatever has just past or is no longer beneficial. This energy is a powerful force for helping us to let go.
Everybody will be able to create their own blends using salts, oils, plants, natural ingredients and the fruits of nature. You will take away the bath blend in a kilner jar to use at home several times as part of your own bathing, cleansing and intention setting ritual. You will also receive a free gift to take away.
Spaces are limited on this small, cozy workshop. All materials are provided…get yourself booked in!