Rest Your Weary Bones

Wrote Evan Esar: ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, and Jill a rich widow.’

Rest is an important part of life. If we spend eight hours a day at work, and eight hours at play, therefore the remainder we spend sleeping or resting.

It has been exactly two weeks since I completed Ironman Austria; I can still feel the residual memory of 226km in my muscles and joints. I have heard anecdotal evidence that it takes about one month to recover from a marathon. I wonder how it takes to fully recover from an Ironman* triathlon?

It is useful to take time off for a vacation; it allows you an opportunity to take a break from the routine of work. It would be more useful to take your allocated time for vacation, than it is it is consume your quota of sick leave.

Your body needs rest in order to recharge and rebuild itself. Rest and recuperation takes place thoroughly when we have enough sleep, rest and proper nutrition. If we don’t rest, our body and mind may deteriorate. We can only deprive ourselves of sleep for so long until we begin hallucinating, falling sick and becoming unbearable to live with. You may be familiar with an irritable colleague who is not coping well with his stress – they may display irrational behavior.

How do you rest? How much time do you make for resting? If you indulge in work that fatigues you, take rest breaks. You may see construction-workers take a nap after lunch. This practice is popular and serves to rejuvenate the worker’s tired body. Athletes perform better when their bodies are given adequate rest. The traditional eight hours of sleep a night may not be far fetched if you are both mentally and physically active. Those who drive long distance would do themselves and others a favour, if they were to take a rest a pit stop.

Sometimes, we may have to work over the weekend or even bring work home. However, it is also relevant to rest between bouts of work to gather your thoughts, wits and composure. Resting may be the pause that refreshes. A speaker may get to rest her voice. A punctuated, moment to reflect may assist a writer trigger off a better-constructed sentence. Silence may provide a philosopher with new insights and epiphanies. A leader may pause to deliberate over a tough decision. Thomas Edison rested as he incubated his pregnant ideas. Hey, he gave us the electric-bulb, didn’t he?

Resting is not about being lazy. It is an important part of our human functioning, if we know when to enhance its capabilities. Rest if needed. It may be more a necessity than a luxury.

*‘Ironman’ is a trademark of the World Triathlon Corporation.