I ran out of gas about an hour ago. Right now I am coasting into an early bedtime pretty much on fumes.
It has been a busy week! Sunday I attended two, blues concerts in a local town. The region is trying to be a destination for those who enjoy the arts. Doing well on that goal. Monday I skied for four hours and did hip hop class for an hour. Work, doggie walks, a little housework and a few more exercises classes later and I am fried. Extra crispy.
There is a doubleheader, yoga class tomorrow afternoon. I would love to go, but I am not going. My knees are whimpering. There are things to do at home. I am ready for a semi-restful day right where I am. Home.
I love being busy but there is such a thing as balance. Just like I cannot sit and stare at the walls 24/7, I cannot go screaming, full tilt 24/7 either. Every once in a while I need to say ‘enough’. (OK, it generally is I say ‘too much’ but you get my drift.)
Many of you may feel you get too much downtime but rest is not a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all. Going back to dialectic philosophy (who said this site is not educational?!?!??), opposites define one another. You cannot understand the light unless you have experienced the dark. We need an appreciation of both to truly understand either.
So, if you are getting too much down time? Rev it up! Too much going on? Calm it down a bit. You know your own balance point.
As I said, rest is not a bad thing. While you may see Sanja Gupta and Deepak Chopra as more media folk than experts, they do make a few good points. Quoted in 4 Surprising Benefits of Rest, these gentleman point out there is a lot of you that doesn’t get any attention when you are too busy with outside events. Give yourself time to experience yourself and see what is inside. Rest can also help you be a better problem solver.
Going on to more – what? Mundane? Practical? – reason for rest, you need sleep to consolidate new learning. A dozen different sites will tell you sleeping after study will give you a better chance of retaining the knowledge. Exercise tears down muscles but a rest day allows your body to build them back up. Bigger! Stronger! Better! Rest reduces stress which reduces the stress hormone, cortisol, which helps you lose weight. Also, without sleep, your organs all shut down pretty much at one time and you die. Ugh. Pretty practical reason for sleep. (Why? They are working on that but so far it is looking like sleep is when the housekeeping unit goes to work in your brain. Without sleep and cleaning, everything goes on the fritz in the control center that is your brain. Massive organ shut down. The end.)
So yes, I am now going to exercise in a different manner. I am exercising discretion, getting a nice, long night of sleep and taking tomorrow to stay home, get some things done and not do any strenuous exercise.
activity<–>BALANCE<–>rest