Why you need to develop a ‘rest ethic’

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You’ve heard all about the importance of your work ethic, but did you know that you also need a rest ethic?

A strong work ethic is something that most businesses look for when they are hiring staff and promoting leaders. It sounds like the receipe for success: nose-to-the-grindstone, hard work, full commitment, pushing past resistance.

But do you know what happens when you do that for too long? No matter how much you love what you do, and who you do it with, if you keep pushing, you’ll eventually end up experiencing things like:

Burnout
Exhaustion
Disengagement

Hardly a recipe for sustainable success, right? That’s why you need not just a work ethic, but a rest ethic too.

What exactly is a 'rest ethic'?

I don’t blame you if you’re asking yourself, “What the heck is a rest ethic?”. I didn’t hear the term until recently myself, but it described something I learned many years ago when I hit burnout.

Simply put, your rest ethic is your pre-commitment to looking after yourself and ensuring that you have the downtime and space you need to prepare for and recover from things that demand your time, energy, and attention.

We aren’t built to go hard all day, every day, without stopping. If you did that to a machine, you know that sooner or later (probably sooner, and at the most inconvenient time!) it will break down. Humans are no different (well, OK, we’re different to machines in many ways, but this isn’t one of them).

So, while having a strong work ethic is important, I believe that having a strong rest ethic is at least as – if not more – necessary for your long-term wellbeing and success.

Why rest? You can sleep when you're dead!

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard the “rest when you’re dead” cliché, I’d be rich!

It sounds cool and start-up-y and impressive… until it leads you into overwork and overwhelm. And if you spend too long there, you’ll eventually learn just how devastating burnout can be.

Burnout and your rest ethic

Burnout is a unique emotional, mental, and physical health challenge that involves features like mental and physical exhaustion, loss of a sense of meaning, dreading work, feeling cynical, depressed, or irritable, lacking compassion for self and others, and so much more. It’s currently defined only as a work-related phenomenon, but it’s possible to experience the same symptoms due to non-work pressures, like caregiving.

While rest on its own can’t entirely prevent or cure burnout, it is a key factor in both having the necessary internal resources to take action before you hit burnout, and it is one of the pathways out of burnout. But once you’re in burnout, it’s not simply a case of a couple of early nights and a few afternoon naps; it can take years to fully recover. That’s why it’s so important to catch yourself before burnout hits.

When you have established a rest ethic, you notice when demands on your energy, attention, resources, and time are getting out of whack with what you know is sustainable on a long-term basis. That means you can take appropriate action before you are sliding down the slippery slope to burnout.

Doesn't needing rest mean I'm lazy?

This is one of the biggest myths about rest: that by resting, or needing rest, you’re being lazy. After all, most people are awake for around sixteen hours a day. Shouldn’t you be using those hours to their fullest potential at all times?

If that sounds like something you’ve thought before, I’d like you to pause and consider whose voice you heard that thought in. Chances are, you picked it up from someone else and then started to act as though it’s true. But how true is it, really? And who benefits if you believe it?

Something I learned years ago when I suffered a nasty case of glandular fever followed by 18 months of post-viral fatigue is that pushing through my fatigue never benefitted me, it either benefitted other people, or no one at all.

If we are unwilling to rest, then we have to find ways to fill sixteen hours every day. And we’ll usually do that by working and spending money (whether shopping, visiting cafes, bars, and restaurantes, going to sporting events and other entertainment). None of those things is inherently bad, but they also aren’t always one hundred percent good for you.

And if your lack of rest isn’t benefitting anyone, then what’s the point of your continous pushing and activity? Why not make time to rest and refresh yourself?

Is this just another name for work-life balance?

No, for several reasons. Firstly, I think the phrase work-life balance isn’t worth the paper it’s written on or the pixels on your screen. “Balance” suggests there’s some perfect point at which work and life are evenly matched. I don’t believe that they should be evenly matched – most people do best when work is a part of their life, but not half of it.

Also, we can be misled into thinking that, once we achieve this mythical balance, we should figure out how to hold it steady, and never go off-balance again.

But, if you’ve lived for even a day on this Earth, you know that’s not how things work around here. Unexpected things happen so often that we can expect them. We don’t know exactly what will go off-track, but we can be absolutely sure that something will, at some point. Trying to be balanced when you’ve got no idea what’s around the corner is a fool’s errand.

Instead, I work on the principle of work-life harmony (check out this article I wrote about it a few years ago). Harmony suggests that things go up and down, fade in and out, get more and less attention, and that they compare and contrast with one another. Instead of the fixedness of balance, we get the fluidity of harmony.

But even the concept of work-life harmony doesn’t point us specifically towards rest as a deliberate, intentional practice. And that’s where the concept of developing a rest ethic comes in.

Developing your rest ethic

Before you could even talk, you were being taught how to have a good work ethic. Your parents encouraged you to try again when you fell down after taking your first step.

And as you grew up, it was constantly reinforced. You got rewarded (tangibly or not) for sitting still, for drawing pictures, for making your bed, for completing assignments, for showing up to sports practice, and so much more.

However many years you’ve been on Earth is how many years you’ve been developing and honing your work ethic. So don’t be surprised if it takes a little time to develop and hone your rest ethic. And check out the ‘Simple beats complicated‘ section below for some advice to make your implementation easier.

Four steps to establish your rest ethic

1. Get clear on why rest matters to you

If you don’t know why you’re doing something, it’s going to be hard to stick with it long-term.

For me, I rest because I know I am the best version of myself, and I do my best work, when I’m well-rested. I have the energy to live life to the full, whether that’s hanging out with friends and family, pushing myself in my running training, cooking up a storm for myself and my loved ones, or doing work that I find meaningful and engaging.

What does being well-rested mean for you? What will it enable you to do? How will it add to your life?

2. Get clear on what kinds of rest you enjoy and need

“Rest” comes in many forms, not just sleep. Not everyone wants or needs the same kinds of rest, or in the same combination or amount. Knowing what works for you will substantially improve the impact of your rest ethic.

Saundra Dalton-Smith has developed a framework of the seven kinds of rest. I’ve previously written a blog post about them here.

In short, they are:

physical,
mental,
sensory,
creative,
emotional,
social, and
spiritual.

Not all of those types will resonate with everyone, so pick one or two that catch your attention, and start establishing your rest ethic with those.

3. Make your rest plan

If you don’t create a plan for how you are going to get the different types of rest you want and need, then things aren’t likely to change.

Ask yourself what guidelines you want to put in place to ensure that you get sufficient rest. Here are a few ideas:

Go to bed by 10pm at least three nights a week (physical rest)
Visit an art gallery once a month (creative rest)
Attend a yoga class, meditation session, or religious service once a fortnight (spiritual rest)
Spend at least ten minutes, three times a week in silence, sitting still and simply paying attention to your breath (sensory rest)

Base your guidelines on what suits you, not what you think other people think you should do.

And make your guidelines do-able: instead of aiming to do something every day without fail, allow yourself a few “passes” for those days where things don’t go to plan. Giving yourself grace in advance means you’re more likely to stick to your plan long-term, and not give in to the aptly-named “what the hell effect“.

4. Put your plan into action

If nothing changes, then nothing changes – your plan only works if you do something with it.

I know I’ve just said it, but it bears repeating: don’t expect to adhere perfectly to your plan at all times. Life is often too unpredictable to follow any plan one hundred percent of the time.

And I don’t mean that only in a negative sense. What if, on the day of one of your planned early nights, a long-time, treasured friend calls to say they’re unexpectedly in town, and would love to see you for a catch-up over dessert? Chances are you won’t get your early night, but how good will it feel to see their face and spend time with them?

So, do what you can to follow your plan. And if you experience some disruption, practice self-compassion, then find one thing you can do to improve how you’re following your plan for the rest of the week. Self-compassion plus action-oriented reflection will help you stick to your plan more closely in the future.

Simple beats complicated, and easy beats hard

If there’s one thing I know about humans, it’s that we’re suckers for overcomplicating things. And worse still, we mistakenly believe that the harder something is, the more valuable it is. Quite frankly, that’s rubbish!

Your plan for developing your rest ethic doesn’t need to be elaborate or hard to achieve. In fact, it’s best if it’s simple and easy. Because even the fanciest, most well-thought-out plan won’t do squat if you don’t put it into action.

So, start simple. Instead of trying to incorporate all seven kinds of rest into your plan immediately, pick the one (or, at most, two) that you think will give you the biggest bang for your buck.

Many people start with sleep, because it’s often the first thing to go when we feel stressed and like there aren’t enough hours in the day.

Here’s how you could get started:

Instead of aiming for three early nights a week (like I suggested above), go for one.
Define “early” in a way that works for you – perhaps start with a goal of going to bed one hour earlier than you normally would, just for that one night a week.
Once you’ve gotten into that rhythm, add another step to your rest plan. It could be another early night, or a completely different kind of rest.

Just take the first step in developing your rest ethic, and see where it can take you!