When Rest is Best

Pope Francis recently appealed to the faithful to slow down a bit, calm our frantic pace and allow more time for reflection and celebration. In other words, rest.

This idea of consciously giving more time to quiet, to contemplation, to “doing” very little, even for a moment, may seem anathema to some. It may seem heretical to the driven corporate lions in their steel towers. It may seem wasteful and inefficient to entrepreneurs sparking start-ups in their lofts and garages. And it may even sound impossible, almost mocking, to moms juggling work files, grocery bags and soccer gear in the back seats of their mini-vans.

Many of us are guilty of chronic workaholism, even pushing into those minutes and hours that should be reserved for sleep.

Yet rest may be exactly what we need to sustain our efforts, reach our goals and lead long and healthy lives. The Pope even went so far as to say that “the obsession with economic profit and technical efficiency puts the human rhythms of life at risk.”

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Our western industrialized society has become a 24/7/365 hum of productivity and busy-ness. Many of us are guilty of chronic workaholism, even pushing into those minutes and hours that should be reserved for sleep, the most prolonged and passive form of rest.

There is no legal minimum vacation in the U.S. We are free to work ourselves to the bone if we choose to, and it seems many of us do.

Furthermore, our workdays often drag into the evening and our workweeks creep into our weekends.

Human beings are part of the natural world and only really thrive when moving and living within our natural rhythms.

But at what cost do we embrace this attitude of “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”? For our frenetic, gotta-get-er-done activity, what are we missing and how might we profit if we paid more attention to the power of rest and sleep?

The prevailing belief that the harder we work, the more we accomplish is a myth. Human beings are part of the natural world and only really thrive when moving and living within our natural rhythms.

Our body clock, with its 24-hour circadian rhythms and 90-minute ultradian cycles, is constantly determining the best times for us to complete all our vital functions. Healthy weight is maintained by eating certain foods at the right time. Sleep is best achieved at night. There is a time for everything.

Remaining attuned to these rhythms can lead to healthy organ systems, strong immune functions and overall physical and emotional balance.

To stay in tune or get back in tune with our own cadence, we must stop periodically, look up from our screens and breathe, slowly and intentionally.

To stay in tune or get back in tune with our own cadence, we must stop periodically, look up from our screens and breathe, slowly and intentionally. We must become quiet enough, long enough to hear a distant ticking from inside. Ideally, this should happen several times during a workday and the space should be widened even more on the weekends.

But when we work without breaks for hours on end or push from one task to the next without a chance to renew, it is unlikely we will be functioning in sync with our own internal clocks. The incessant moil drowns out the internal cues and confuses the system. This leads to inefficiencies and breakdowns at the cellular level as well as the corporate one.

Studies have shown that shift workers, people who must force their bodies to be awake and then to sleep during unnatural times, are more likely to suffer digestive and reproductive problems and succumb more often to cancer than their day-shift counterparts.

Harvard scientists showed that a 30-minute nap, halfway through a simulated workday, could prevent performance deterioration that occurred when the nap was not allowed.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne tested subjects’ abilities to remain focused on a repetitive task under various conditions. Those who were allowed periodic breaks performed better, made fewer mistakes and exhibited better memory function than participants required to remain with the task for 50 minutes or more without a rest.

Harvard scientists showed that a 30-minute nap, halfway through a simulated workday, could prevent performance deterioration that occurred when the nap was not allowed.

The brain obviously needs a breather from time to time and so does the body. Studies have shown that vacations from work decrease heart attacks in men, depression in women and increase performance review scores at work.

And so, while Pope Francis encourages rest and celebration as a path to gratitude and godliness, it may also be an unappreciated and underused key to health and sustainable productivity – a win-win-win proposition.