The Seven Types of Rest: A Comprehensive Guide for a Healthier You

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.

woman lying on grass front of sea at daytime

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.

green moss on gray rock

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!

How Can Sound Therapy Help Me?

“Everything in life is vibration” – Albert Einstein

All things vibrate energetically due to their atomic or molecular structure. When we talk about our own vibration, we mean our overall state of being; relative to all that we interact with. It’s important that we recognise our own vibration and how that can be affected by all that we come into contact with – not just other people, but food, technology, weather, scent, buildings…it all matters to our vibration.

But why is vibration important?

Because we need to find balance to find wellness and wholeness. It sounds simple and yet in modern life it is so hard to find that balance and more so to keep it. Ancient cultures understood vibration and the importance of balancing energy to bring wellness to the individual and the community. Energetic balance is central to Shamanic principles of wellbeing, just as it is central to yogic philosophy, Traditional Chinese Medicine, aromatherapy, sound therapy…the list goes on.

Our ancestors knew that the individual could not find balance alone. But, as we move away from small community living to global society, what we actually find is we are billions of individuals that have lost a lot of our real and meaningful connection to each other. Competition and selfishness have caused us a great deal of physical and mental suffering.

If we recognise that balance is found in the principle of interconnectedness; that all things affect us just as we affect them; then we can regain our balance.

How do I know if I’m out of balance?

There are a number of signs that you may be feeling out of balance energetically:

  • Feeling stuck and not sure of which decisions or directions to take in life
  • Feeling of carrying a weight that often manifests as sadness or dissatisfaction
  • Loss of motivation, even for the things that you enjoyed previously
  • Stress and anxiety and feelings of overwhelm
  • Periods of illness or inability to shake off illness
  • Mood swings
  • The ease and joy of life feel difficult to find
  • Fatigue or lethargy
  • Digestive discomfort

How can I find my Balance?

All things are connected, so all things affect your energetic balance. An upset in the balance of your energy can have great physical and mental effects, but sound therapy can help you to find the balance that has been lost by directing sound frequencies into the body and mind.

Sound Therapy

A profound way to access and heal energetic balance is through sound therapy. As you relax, traditional instruments that have been used for healing practices for centuries, are played on or near to your body. The frequencies of the sounds produced, effect and realign the frequencies and energetic balance of our bodies and minds.

The pure sounds enter the body and mind and can have a profound effect on emotional states, mental busyness and stress levels. Sound therapy can also treat physical ailments as the sound frequencies enter the body and resonate with water and fluid content in the cells. Rhythmic and repetitive sounds can also directly affect brainwave states to bring individuals into deeper states of relaxation, awareness and consciousness. The deeper states of relaxation activate the parasympathetic nervous system, turning down the body’s stress response and activating the release of hormones to bring the body back to balance chemically as well a energetically. Long-term or chronic illness such a fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue and osteoarthritis can also be alleviated through sound therapy as sound waves enter the body and encourage healing on a cellular level.

Sound therapy also has deep connection to Chakra theory. Each Chakra (energetic wheel) vibrates at a certain frequency and can be assisted back into balance and free movement through the use of sound therapy. Particular frequencies played on or near to the Chakras can have a profound rebalancing effect on overall wellbeing.

What’s involved in a therapy session?

Therapy sessions utilise tonal (singing bowls, bells, chimes etc) and rhythmic (drums, rattles etc) instruments as part of the therapeutic process. There may also be use of vocal toning and mantra to aid the process of relaxation and to create further resonant tones.

So many of our modern illness and imbalances are caused by stress and we often find ourselves tolerating the effects of stress for far longer than we should. Thinking, ‘things will get better’, ‘this will pass soon’, but often we struggle on for years.

Sound therapy isn’t just about listening to nice music and relaxing for an hour (although that does happen). Techniques of visualisation, reflection and grounding are built into the practice and afterwards to allow each client to gain a deeper insight into their own wellbeing and how practical steps to rebalance can be take in everyday life.

Following an initial consultation, you will relax on a therapy couch or on the floor (supported by blankets and pillows) and will be guided into relaxation before the therapy session begins. Based on your individual requirements and concerns, the therapist will play instruments directed at particular health concerns, imbalances or reactions that have manifested in the body or mind. Following the treatment you will be brought slowly out of the session with grounding techniques and self-reflection on your journey or experience during the treatment and in the following weeks.

How to book

Sessions are available throughout the week at The Well Nest Studio, very close to Stafford town centre. Please contact Hannah to check availability and make your booking. [email protected]

The first session you have will last 75 minutes to allow for the initial consultation and discussion of your requirements. Sessions can thereafter be booked for 60 or 45 minutes.

First session (75 minutes) £45

60 minute session £40

45 minute session £35

Small group sessions can also be provided at The Well Nest or at your home. please contact Hannah to make enquiries [email protected]