The World’s Worst Rester: How Active Rest Builds Strength, Balance, and a Calmer Mind

Confession time: I might be the world’s worst rester. To those who know me well, this will come as no surprise. I am not a veg on the sofa all day kind of girl. I move every single day. By move, I mean train, walk, run (sometimes), jiu-jitsu, yoga – at least one of these, often 2 or more, every day. I am lucky that in doing this I have learned A LOT and now I get to share this with you. So as a serial mover and competitive rest dodger, here is what I have learned in the last nearly 2 decades.

• I rest when I walk.

I walk my dogs every day – rain, hail or shine, we are out walking. There have been times when it has been too hot to take the dogs out, or they just didn’t want to go (yes, my dogs hate the rain and will point blank refuse to go out if it is raining when we are due to leave the house) and I have gone on the walk on my own. These walks are like meditation times for me. Morning and evening I don’t take my phone. No pocket pings, no noises other than those happening around me. Just me, playing with the dogs or them sniffing and me taking in nature. It clears my head, bookends my day in a positive way and brings me back to myself. Rarely do I get spiralling thoughts when I am walking and if I do, I can spot them and stop the loop.

• Training everyday will NOT ruin your body.

I am without question the strongest and most flexible I have ever been and yet I load my body in some way every day, often heavy, often with volume, often with the weight of another human. Even though I train every day, I am careful about what I do. I do not go balls to the wall in every session. I work loaded mobility work with strength work so that I am not overloading my body day after day without giving my muscles chance to refresh themselves.

• Sitting is not for me.

Sitting for long periods has given me more pain than training with load, doing multiple yoga classes in a day or even heavy jiu-jitsu rounds. My body does not enjoy being in one position for hours at a time. If I have to sit for long periods I will make sure that I leave my drink in the kitchen so I have to get up to go get it, or I will leave the laptop charger in the office if I am working downstairs so I have to get up and go get it when the battery starts to die. I will walk during client calls, just around the house if I need to be near the laptop and I will change sitting positions regularly so that I can open my hips or let my hip flexors have a break.

• No distraction breakfast

When I started to study somatic work I made a rule, one meal of the day would be consumed without distraction. That means no phone, no reading material (not even a packet or letter), just me and my food. I chose breakfast and I have stuck to that every single day without fail. In the summer I sit in the garden and notice how my food tastes, what I can see around me, invariably there is a pup’s head that wants to be stroked. In the winter I make sure I can see outside, and I do the same thing only this time I also notice what is going on inside the house. It is a fantastic reset. My second rule is no to-do lists. As soon as I start thinking about what I need to get done that day, I look for something in an obscure colour that I know will be hard to find. It’s like hitting the slow-motion button—3, 2, 1, back in the room.

• I treat my yoga practice like learning, then dancing

I practice every day, sometimes for 15 minutes, sometimes for an hour, it just depends on the time I have to ‘spare’. When I am practicing, I take time to feel what is happening in my body, which micro movements I can make that will turn on or off a certain muscle. What movements I can make that give me better access to length. How I can add tension to create some extra strength in a lengthened position. Then I flow, which to me is like a dance. Sometimes there is no music, but I will find a rhythm and flow each movement into the next, just me, my breath and my body. Sounds cheesy I know but I know my body inside out by this point. I can tell what feels off and what feels strong outside my practice.

So maybe I’m not the world’s worst rester after all. I just rest differently — with movement, with presence, with joy. And if that means I’ll still be walking hills, lifting weights, and doing handstands when I’m eighty, and I will (wink)… then I’m doing rest exactly right.

Feel like you are also a serial rest resister? Why not channel it into working through my Stong Girl Starter Pack. You won't me sorry.