For the last 18 months I have been suffering with chronic fatigue syndrome. It has occurred after years of “pushing through” when I was exhausted, exacerbated by long covid and then capped off when I briefly did a manual job which was physically too much for me. Oh, and with side orders of ambition, discipline and a drive to “make things happen” for myself, no matter what!
I am not fully recovered but I have improved and I am now more resilient when my energy is low. One of the things which has become part of my daily routine is the need for rest – specifically lying on my bed for an hour or so during the middle of the day.
Mostly this is in the afternoon and is often accompanied by listening to a yoga nidra recording, which is part of my therapy. Lying on my back, with a yoga eye-pillow draped over my eyes, I usually drift off to sleep for around forty minutes. I often feel tired and in need of this in the early afternoon. If I am able to remain busy during that time, then tiredness invariably catches up with me before teatime.
In the last few weeks, even though I understand and feel the need for this period of rest, I have felt ashamed of having to do it. I am fortunate that I have rental income so I have managed financially without a job through my illness. But when I think of my friends and ex-colleagues beavering away all day in an office, while I lay back in repose, I have felt embarrassed that this is necessary for my daily survival.
I wish I had the energy to work all day too. But no, I have to be like an old granny, taking to my bed for some afternoon forty winks!
The fact that this allows me to write for an hour here and there, and carry out the daily domesticity of personal care, shopping and cooking tends to escape me! Not to mention that I can summon up the energy to drive a fifty-five mile roundtrip to visit my husband in his specialist rehab hospital.
Rest is resistance
I heard about the book, Rest Is Resistance, a few months ago. It sounded like a good read, and relevant to my predicament, but I didn’t pursue it – until two weeks ago when I came across this recording of an interview between Elizabeth Gilbert and the book’s author, Tricia Hersey.
In the interview, Hersey talks about how her grandmother, who had eight children and lots of grandchildren, always took thirty to sixty minutes a day to sit down quietly with her eyes closed. She professed to not always being asleep but just allowing herself time to “rest my eyes and listen for what God wants to tell me.” Or to connect with herself and find peace.
Then it struck me – why was I so embarrassed about being in tune with my body and its need for rest? And I am fortunate enough to have the circumstances where I can attend to this need.
When I lay down in the afternoon, I usually doze for exactly forty minutes then wake up and feel replenished. How wonderful! What is there to be ashamed about?!
Upon further investigation, famous writers such as JRR Tolkein, Stephen King and Haruki Murakami are devoted nappers as were former US presidents Jack Kennedy, George HW Bush and Bill Clinton. Add Albert Einstein and Winston Churchill into the mix of daytime snoozers and one can see that this is not a habit to feel mortified about!
Unfortunately, we live in a culture in which productivity, hustle and grind, helped by electricity and endless screens, has severed the link to our natural circadian rhythms. Resting is often frowned upon. “We can sleep when we’re dead,” we say as we pound on through our work, ticking off items on the never-ending to do list, while pouring another shot of caffeine down our throats. How crazy is that?
Are you resisting rest?
Would it benefit you if you did give yourself more time to do “just nothing” or get more rest?
Rest doesn’t have to be sleeping. It might be listening to music (while doing nothing else), staring out of the window watching the world go by or engaging in a crafty-pursuit such as knitting or needlepoint.
As writers it can be difficult to value rest
Writing is often something that has to fit around the cracks of other must-do items in our life such as earning money or tending to our family. We are often encouraged to get up early, or stay up late to get it done (and I am guilty of proffering this advice!). We choose to have less social life and time to do nothing in order to scratch our creative itch.
I’ve started reading Rest Is Resistance and it is making me question why I have always felt the need to achieve and to buy into the capitalist dream that success means financial security, recognition and getting things done. In order for my body to heal I am having to unpick many old habits and thought patterns.
I’m sure I will write more about this in the future.
But in the meantime, I will leave you with this question:
Would it matter if you achieved less and rested more?
Plodding gently
Cali x
P.S. If you found this article useful, then please share it. It might be just the thing that an exhausted soul needs to read!
Photo by Aleksandar Cvetanovic on Unsplash
I have definitely slowed down a lot since I’ve had Covid, not once, but twice. I don’t always have time to rest during the day but will always try to get my eight hours of sleep and do what I can during the day time hours available and try not to beat myself up when I can’t get something done.
I have had that book loaned out from the library for months. I read a bit. I've been aware of the stress of success and responsibility since 10th grade. I tried to throw my type A overboard in 1980 at the age of 20. https://journalisa.substack.com/p/the-week-i-turned-from-being-type But Type A isn't something one can throw over easily. I even had On-Site Stress Reductionist on my massage therapy card. I know that stress is the cause of 95% of illness. Stress is insidious. Working and then getting creative at 7pm, doing at 10pm, then sleeping from 3am-7am to get ready for work and to do it all over again. Never mind family, and upkeep obligations of time and energy. I know. I got cancer at 50. We get cancer when we've avoided the many other messages our body has been giving us, but we haven't been listening. It's quite a hoax, this need to overachieve instead of truly living in and being comfortable with our own skin. The older I get the more I realize how my energy really rides, and I don't try to override it anymore. But it took me 14 years with cancer to come to this realization.