Rest Easy With Gratitude

In our busy lives with hectic schedules, increased deadline pressure and never ending to do lists., we often don’t feel we have time to rest. We are often caught in the grind of work, family responsibilities and ongoing stress. Often, we only allow ourselves to truly rest on holidays or vacation. However, it’s so important to prioritize adequate rest in our everyday lives.

Rest is vital for better physical and mental health, increased concentration and memory, a healthier immune system, reduced stress, improved mood and even a better metabolism.

There are several different types of rest and gratitude can help us with all of them. There’s physical, mental, sensory, creative, emotional, social and spiritual rest.

We all need physical rest, sleep helps us to recharge the batteries and prepare us all to go again the next day. Gratitude works in a similar way to meditation. When we surround ourselves with positivity we create a more comfortable space around us, which impacts others but also has a strong effect on ourselves. Taking a few minutes at the end of the day to reflect on what we are grateful for will help us to have a more peaceful and blissful sleep.

Mental rest is very important; to optimise our performance it’s important to take regular breaks during the day, we can use these breaks to reflect on positive things, maybe makes lists of who we need to thank, through the power of gratitude we can maximise these shorts breaks from the monotony of our daily routines.

Sensory rest is strongly connected to mental rest, when we take those breaks throughout the day, maybe close your eyes for a minute or two. Listen to the birds singing. Think about the positive things around you and all the things to be grateful for.

We can take the power of nature even further with creative rest. Get out into nature, when we get into the bush it’s a really good opportunity to feel gratitude for the world around us. Whether that’s walking along a beach and hearing the waves stroking the shore or walking through woodland and hearing the wind rustle through the trees, there’s a lot to be thankful for.

An environment of gratitude promotes psychological safety, a space where we can be authentic, our true selves. This space also lets us expose our vulnerability, knowing that our support network is there to encourage us.

Resting emotionally is an opportunity to let down our guard and freely express our emotions, and we know that psychological safe environments are essential to allow this outpouring of emotion! If we seek moments to be grateful and reward the kindness of others it will help us surround ourselves with other positive and supportive people, when we are in a group of such people, it will allow us to be socially at rest.

Gratitude builds and strengthens relationships, it enables us to feel part of something bigger than ourselves, when we have an attitude of gratitude we are more likely to get involved in community projects, volunteer and be kinder to others. When we engage with others and join such groups we experience spiritual rest.

Yes rest is good for us and gratitude will really help us to rest easy! A great way to facilitate this rest is by using the TAP app, spend those little breaks, reading messages of gratitude, when we reflect at the end of the day on all the positive things and reasons to be grateful, send a message of thanks yourself. Engage with local communities and listen to our show on Central Coast Radio from 11am-1pm every Tuesday. By adding gratitude to our daily routines we will increase the quality of our rest and experience better mental and physical wellbeing.

Finally a big thank you to Stiller Beobachter from Ansbach in Germany for the great picture!