Recipes for Rest

Recipes for Rest

This week I listened to an interesting programme on relaxation (thank you Sheila for recommending tuning into What's Up Docs: Doctors Notes: Relaxation on BBC Sounds). 

It highlighted that relaxation isn't always as simple as it seems. We get told how good it is for us to relax, yet for many of us relaxation isn't always that easy to access. 

It explores how relaxation is often commodified; sold in luxury packages that people pay high prices for then feel pressure to experience it (after all we paid good money for it!). 

Interestingly they also commented on how in their view mindfulness promised relaxation but didn't always deliver; with one of them having spent a week on a silent meditation retreat (which he thought would be relaxing) and finding it excruciating. 

It was very interesting to listen to and for me highlighted how often relaxation and mindfulness get mis-interpreted.

After all relaxation doesn't always come in the form of rest; and stress reduction doesn't always look like relaxation. 

The truth is also that we are all different, one size doesn't fit all. When I trained as a yoga therapist, we often sought definitive answers to what would help a client with a particular condition. The answer we always got from our teachers was "it depends".

While this answer felt frustrating at the time, we soon learnt that it made sense. What works for one person doesn’t work for another, it depends on many factors. We all have different natures, different backgrounds, different life experiences. It makes sense that we have different needs. 
Certainly, despite me finding silent retreats so beneficial, I would never recommend them to someone seeking time to chill out and relax!

If we have been living and working in high stress mode for months, going straight to stillness is likely to feel uncomfortable. Our body may be still but with stress hormones coursing through us we are likely to feel internally fizzy. Slowing down may be a needed more than stillness. 

(This is one of the reasons I love teaching Flow & Restore or Yoga for Calm, we often need some movement to slow us down before we can be with stillness). 

If we have lived through a traumatic experience it is understandable that our nervous system may be on hyper-alert and relaxation can feel unsafe. For this reason, some people feel more anxious if they start to relax.  

For many people keeping their eyes open (where they can remain attentive to their environment) is more calming than closing them, and ‘doing’ something active (e.g. a bike ride, DIY, playing with a fidget spinner) helps them find more ease than resting.  

If we mistake mindfulness for a relaxation technique we will understandably feel frustrated (or think we are doing it wrong) when we become aware of a body that is tense and a mind that is busy. 

But mindfulness works by helping us open to our experience without being so reactive to it. We begin to be able to observe our busy mind rather than feel so entangled in it. We become better able to tune into our body rather than be so lost in thoughts. We become better able to listen to, trust and act on our intuition to decipher what is right for us (rather than fallowing what others say we should be doing or feeling). 

So, while we are in the midst of holiday season let’s take the pressure off the demand we might place on ourself to relax.

Let’s appreciate that there are many recipes for feeling more at ease. Some can come in the form of activity and some in stopping, sometimes we find it community and sometimes in solitude. 

Sometimes when we most need it can allude us but reducing the pressure to feel it can in itself feel relieving.