When you’re busy all the time, it’s hard to pause, slow down and rest. But the busier you are, the more you need to recover and recharge. Wanting to rest is not a sign of weakness or laziness. It’s not just a reward for hard work or a job well done.
Rest helps you avoid exhaustion, overwhelm and burnout. Although it helps you to do more and make more, it’s vital for its own sake. When you’re well rested, you make better choices and prioritize what matters. You do fewer things in the short term, but accomplish more in the long run.
Visible activity is often mistaken for real productivity. You could be going fast and spinning your wheels, but not making real progress or heading in the right direction. When you’re too tired and stressed, you can’t produce output and generate ideas that are truly valuable and useful.
In episode 70 of The Incrementalist, you will learn:
1) What is rest
2) The benefits of passive rest, like Niksen (the Dutch term for doing nothing)
3) The advantages of active rest, like tactile hobbies or meditative activities
4) Rest can be mentally restorative, physically recharging, or spiritually renewing, or a combination of all three
5) The two main branches of the nervous system: Sympathetic and Parasympathetic
6) Polyvagal Theory and the importance of the vagus nerve and Ventral Vagal State
7) The four types of responses to stress: Fight, Flight, Freeze and Fawn
8) Rest allows you to use your nervous system more effectively and activate the Ventral Vagal State to destress
9) Why rest is key to creating big results in small steps
I’m making an online course currently titled The Busyness Trap: How to Escape Overload and Focus on What Matters. To get updates on the course launch and registration process, subscribe to my e-newsletter or The Incrementalist YouTube channel or podcast.
To read the transcript of this episode, go here.
To listen to the podcast, click here.
Watch the video our YouTube channel, The Incrementalist – A Productivity Show. And subscribe to the show to keep making big changes in small steps.
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Dyan Williams is a productivity coach who helps busy professionals and business owners reduce overwhelm, turn their ideas into action, and focus on what matters. She is also a solo lawyer who practices U.S. immigration law and legal ethics at Dyan Williams Law PLLC. She is the author of The Incrementalist: A Simple Productivity System to Create Big Results in Small Steps.
