When Monday morning rolls around, it’s only a matter of time before I hear someone say “I completely wasted my weekend! I had so many things that I should have done, but I spent the whole weekend watching Netflix and napping!”

When I hear this, I want to say to them, “You didn’t waste your weekend, you rested on the weekend”. Rest is so important. It’s as vital to our wellbeing as food, water and oxygen. Rest gives us a chance to recover from stress and return to a calm state after being challenged. Rest actually makes us more productive because our focus, concentration and attention improve when we’re well-rested.

Even though a lot of us know this, many people struggle to prioritize rest. Perhaps you see rest as a treat or an indulgence, so you feel guilty for taking time out. It could be that you believe that rest is something that you have to “earn”, so you don’t feel justified taking a break until you’ve ticked off your to-do list. It could also be that you’re over-committed, and there aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything that you need to do, and something’s gotta go. And that something is usually your down-time.

So, you understand that rest is important, but you aren’t sure how to make sure that you’re getting enough. Here are 5 things you can do to prioritize rest and make room for it in your busy day.

Take Breaks at Work

You have breaks scheduled into your workday, but how often do you actually take them? If something important comes up, do you sacrifice your break time to attend to it? Do you eat at your desk while continuing to work? Do you spend your lunch break talking to your colleagues about work? If you answered “yes”, then it’s time to make a change.

Breaks need to be a non-negotiable part of your day. Taking regular, short breaks gives you a chance to refresh your brain and return to work with more focus. If you’re feeling stressed, your break is the perfect way to regulate your emotions and return to a more balanced state. Take a walk around the block, read your book in the break room, or do a quick meditation away from your desk. If you want to feel calmer during the workday, make sure you’re not sacrificing your breaks.

Set boundaries around work

There’s a lot of pressure on employees to be constantly available to our bosses. You might feel an expectation to respond to emails and calls even when you’re not at your desk. Not only does this mean that you’re doing hours of unpaid work every week, but it makes it impossible for you to properly switch off and relax. If you’re always waiting for a call or email from your boss, it’s really hard to rest.

Be strict about your boundaries and leave work at the office. Turn off your phone, mute your boss’s number and don’t check your email after hours. Unless you have a job where you’re rostered to be “on-call” (and are paid for that), you don’t need to be attending to work in your own time. It will still be there when you get to the office on Monday morning.

Have a set “Wind-down” time each night

Do you feel exhausted all day, but then struggle to fall asleep when you finally crawl into bed? If you’re doing housework, texting with friends or shopping online right up until the moment you head to bed, that could be the reason.

Just like it takes a little while to wake up in the morning, it also takes time to wind down at night. Setting a dedicated “wind-down” time every night can really improve your sleep and relaxation. Your wind down time should begin at least 90 minutes before you intend to be asleep. This time should be used to get ready for bed and relaxing activities that help you to feel calm. That might include things like reading a book, watching a TV show or meditating. Avoid any activity that gets you feeling worked-up or excited, like playing intense video games or watching scary movies. Ideally, it’s best to avoid screens during this time, as the blue light can mess with your circadian rhythms and make it harder to sleep. So, put your phone away until morning to get the most out of your nightly wind-down time.

Have a dedicated do-nothing day

While it can be tempting to fill your calendar to the brim with activities, chores and projects, it’s really important to set time aside to rest. Rest isn’t simply something that you should do when you’ve got nothing else on. It’s a vital ingredient in your overall wellbeing, and it can be really helpful to dedicate time to resting.

Scheduling your rest time can help allay feelings that rest is “unproductive”. By blocking out time to rest, you treat it as something that’s important and worthwhile.

The specific amount of do-nothing time that you’ll need depends on your personality, how stressful your day-to-day life is and your overall physical and mental health. It’s a good idea to dedicate an afternoon every fortnight (or a whole day, if you can manage it) as a starting point and then adjust if you feel like this isn’t enough.

Plan out your free time

It’s a good idea to decide in advance how you’d like to spend your rest time. Some people experience “analysis paralysis” where they become stuck trying to decide how to spend their rest time. This can cause a loop of frustration, where they spend ages trying to settle on a restful task, and then feel frustrated and resentful that they don’t have enough time to properly enjoy the task they’ve chosen. If you chose an activity in advance, then you don’t have to waste a moment of your rest time trying to figure out what you feel like doing.

You could schedule in a specific restful activity (eg, reading a book, working on a craft project) or make a list of all of the restful things that you’d like to do so that you can just pick an item from the list. Pre-planning your rest will make it much easier for you to let go and relax properly when that time comes.

If you’d like assistance with prioritizing rest, please get in touch with me to book an appointment. We can take a look at the barriers that are holding you back, work on changing your mindset around rest, set boundaries where needed and find ways to incorporate rest that serve you best.