Wellness Wednesday - The 7 types of rest

Here's an article from the Guardian regarding the 7 types of rest.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/nov/25/the-seven-types-of-rest-i-spent-a-week-trying-them-all-could-they-help-end-my-exhaustion

Do you agree with them? Any recommendations for getting these types of rest?

Thanks for the article.

There is a 5-10 minute quiz that measures your "rest score" (quick disclaimer the site will send your results through email and probably put you on a mailing list (jokes on them I don't check my email a lot anyways)). Low numbers mean you're getting adequate amount of rest in that area; and higher numbers range from feeling the effects of lack of rest, to your life being negatively affected.

What surprised me, as well as the author, was social rest according to Dalton-Smith doesn't mean to abstain from social interactions, but instead having quality interactions with people you can be your "unvarnished" or true self. Social is also where I scored the highest (in this test you want the lowest) out of the 7 areas. Not too high of a number though.

I think my suggestion fits into the mental rest. When I was on-call for the utility company it blurred the line for work-life balance, which becomes increasingly common as people work from home. I learned about this concept of creating power-down time through Linkedin Learning. Basically, you create a threshold whether you use music, a ritual, something that provides your body and mind a cue that you can now relax. It works in the reverse too, having a cue for when you're beginning to work. As a musician, music mostly provided my cue in the following way.

So, when I would receive a call or go to work, I would play "Fortunate Son" while heading to location which would reinforce the idea, I need to shift my focus to safety and be vigilant of danger. When the work was done, I would come home and listen to a bit of classical/baroque music before going inside like Handel. In this way, leaving my truck and entering my home also created a physical threshold for me to cross.

Doing this provided a certain depth to my rest and I still use it today working from home. My office is upstairs and down a long hallway. This long hallway I've made my threshold in my mind. As I physically cross it, my focus shifts to work mode.

I hope this is useful and I'm curious as to what others do to get their specific rests.

Just a quick thought on the threshold idea.
My service dog is with me all of the time, and she's always performing certain tasks for me. But we have a cue for when I need her to be extra alert, and to be totally focused on me rather than also being free to run around and be her doggy self. When I put her vest on her and say "time to go to work" she's instantly in full-work mode. When she can relax again, I take off her vest and tell her "all done working, good job" and she relaxes or runs off to play.

Substitute "your brain" for "my service dog" and I bet it's a very similar process.