Rest is not just about taking time off, but about forming new habits that include conscious relaxation activities. It's essential to differentiate between passive rest that disengages you from life and active rest that rejuvenates you. Engaging in activities that are different from your routine during rest time indicates that you are on the right path to truly restoring yourself.
Between making time for work, family, friends, exercise, chores, shopping—the list goes on and on—it can feel like a huge accomplishment to just take a few minutes to read a book or watch TV before bed. All that busyness can lead to poor sleep quality when we finally do get to put our heads down.
How does our relationship with rest impact our ability to gain real benefits from it? And how can we use our free time to rest in a culture that often moralizes rest as laziness? Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, the author of several books on rest and director of global programs at 4 Day Week Global, explains what rest is and how anyone can get started doing it more effectively.
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