Stress is a feeling we have normalised. We’ve become so familiar with it that we don’t fully comprehend when we are experiencing it. It comes in many disguises – a busy mind, impatient, anxious, irritated, frustrated, indecisive, forgetful, sensitive, hot tempered and the list goes on. We wish we didn’t feel this way but figure it’s our personality or some unlucky gene. This leaves us feeling inadequate, depleted and overwhelmed by life. If we keep going on like this, at some point our body will start to malfunction and it’s no surprise that we are beginning to experience a growing number of health concerns, some of which our ancestors would have never even heard of.
To counterbalance the stress and fatigue we accumulate in life – the body requires REST. Rest is designed to bring the body back into a state of balance. This is why we go to sleep every night, so the body can repair and replenish. However relying on sleep as our only form of rest is simply not enough to work through the back log of stress we’ve accumulated in a life time. Often our sleep is deprived, disrupted or poor in quality.
Meditation is the antidote to stress and the answer to boosting our bodies with much needed rest. We need to start scheduling rest into our day, and thinking of it not as lazy or indulgent, but as a form of action. When we make the decision to rest, we are making the decision to boost our productivity, enliven our creative potential and come back to the world as a more energised version of ourselves. If we are tired and run down we simply cannot function optimally and we cannot be our best self.
Meditation is not just another thing to put on your to-do list, it is the thing that is going to help you get through your to do list. So of all those things on your list, is rest one of them?
