Rest

January Paoli, Indiana sunrise

Life can be so hectic. A busy day for me can be a two-hour commute to work, a 24-hour shift at the hospital, and then a two-hour commute home. Then I spend the rest of the next day trying to catch up on sleep. On other days, I get up early to do my Bible devotionals and write on my blog, then I complete several hours of homeschool with my daughter. After that, I try to squeeze in some yoga and then prepare dinner. I’m usually ready for bed by 8:30. Still, on other days, there are errands, appointments, social media, and other engagements. Does this pace sound familiar to you? There isn’t enough time to slow down.

During my recent morning Bible reading, I came across a You Version Bible app devotional by Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith called, “Sacred Rest.” She’s an internal medicine doctor who wrote this devotional that goes along with her book, Sacred Rest: Recover Your Life, Renew Your Energy, Restore Your Sanity. This appealed greatly to me, since I tend to run on fumes most days. I’m sure many of you can relate.

Dr. Dalton-Smith talks about how rest is actually active. Rest is not just sleep. In fact, sometimes sleep is not restful. She defines seven different types of rest:

1. Physical: The chance to use the body in restorative ways to decrease muscle tension, reduce headaches, and promote higher quality sleep.
2. Mental: The ability to quiet cerebral chatter and focus on things that matter.
3. Spiritual: The capacity to experience God in all things and recline in the knowledge of the Holy.
4. Emotional: The freedom to authentically express feelings and eliminate people-pleasing behaviors.
5. Social: The wisdom to recognize relationships which revive from ones that exhaust and how to limit exposure to toxic people.
6. Sensory: The opportunity to downgrade the endless onslaught of sensory input received from electronics, fragrances, and background noise.
7. Creative: The experience of allowing beauty to inspire awe and liberate wonder.

In the devotional, Dr. Dalton-Smith offers a personal rest deficit assessment. You can go to the link (http://www.restquiz.com) and take a short quiz for free, and then she sends you your results by email. She gives you a score for each of the seven areas, so you can understand what areas of your life are missing rest. One of my biggest deficits was in Mental rest. Although the results came with an explanation, I wanted to know more. So, I purchased her book on Amazon. Just to give you an example of information from the book, I went to the chapter on Mental rest. She discusses several types of mental noise, some of which include: self-critiquing and evaluating with an ongoing inner monologue, thinking the same thoughts over and over, reliving past events and rewriting your script with what you wish you’d done or said, and dwelling on “what if’s” and fearing the future. Then she offers ways to quiet cerebral background noise and ways to create a mental sanctuary.

I wanted to share this with all of you, because I know all of us become weary at some point in this life. I found this quiz to be helpful in that it helped me identify the areas where I can make changes so I’m more rested. I hope it helps you, too. Stay warm!