Feeling Creatively Burned Out? You Need a Weekly Day of Guilt-Free Rest
Photo by Elevae
I don’t mean to brag, but I’m an A+ vacationer. No one has to stop me from checking emails or worrying about what I have to do when I get back. I’m in the freaking zone, and it means coming back home creatively energized.
For example, on a family vacation to Italy, the last hour or so before we had to go to the airport to go home, my mom was running around nervously checking she had packed everything—just like she’d done the night before.
I, on the other hand, drank as many cappuccinos as my server would give me and just stared out over the Amalfi Coast. There wasn’t anything else I needed to do at that point, and it felt so good to just be, guilt-free.
But it’s hard to bring that same energy back home where work and social commitments stack up—you can’t always be sipping Aperol Spritz’. (A girl can dream though, am I right?)
So, you swing hard one way only to need to swing hard the other way, to feel “balanced”. You feel like you have to keep this perfect work/life equilibrium, but what if you’re thinking about it all wrong?
What if there was a way to incorporate those vacation vibes into your regular routine, so you didn’t have to escape your life for 2-3 weeks at a time?
I’m not talking about weekly spa treatments or elaborate happy hours. I’m talking about a new view of rest that’ll transform your entire life: A weekly day of rest aka Sabbath.
What is Sabbath?
Sabbath or shabbāth in Hebrew, means rest. In some faiths, it’s an entire day, and can extended into a sabbatical, which is an extended break from work, maybe a whole year every seven years—think college professors.
Either way, it’s a time of stepping away from your job, so you can connect spiritually, with friends and family, or with yourself. Some people believe a Sabbath should include no work at all, and others believe it should be the opposite of what you already do. So, if you work at a computer all day, your Sabbath may include gardening or doing something active in nature.
One key of Sabbath is to cut out as much noise as possible i.e. put your phones, social media and streaming services away. This is a time to create white space for new (or no) ideas. Let it be whatever it is instead of forcing it to be a time of rest.
If you can’t commit to a full day every week, start with 2-4 hours and go from there. Put it on your calendar and be intentional about it. If you’re not, no one else will respect it either.
Sleep and Rest Are Not the Same Things
When most people think about rest, they think it means a good night’s sleep. But according to Dr. Saundra Dalton-Smith, sleep and rest are not the same things. And there are actually 7 types of rest, including:
Mental: meditation and quiet time
Spiritual: prayer, meditation, volunteering
Emotional: being alone, journaling, talking to a loved one
Social: stepping away from social situations, prioritizing self-care, having solo dates, being with close friends and family
Sensory: enjoying a hot cup of tea, shutting off devices, lighting a candle and sitting in a quiet room
Creative: stepping away from work, diving into a hobby or creative activity
Physical: massages, exercise, naps
So, if you’ve ever woken up from a full night of sleep exhausted, you probably need more than a nap. You need time to be in nature, play, be still and even be bored. Some of the types of rest overlap, so you can recharge more quickly than you think. You don’t have to spend your whole life trying to hit each and every one.
Experiment with your weekly day of rest. It’s tempting to find a rhythm you think “is it”, but let yourself rest in new places, so you don’t burn out quickly.
Rest & Recovery is an All-Star Move
Every creative should take a cue from professional athletes and make rest and recovery part of the process. It’s recommended that elite athletes have one full day of rest a week aka doing nothing. Beyond needing it for muscle growth and increasing endurance, it also saves people, professional and the non-professional, from overtraining. When you’re pushing yourself beyond what your body can physically handle, you’ll become fatigued quickly and take longer to complete simple tasks.
I think it’s hard for anyone in a creative field (especially food) to feel like they can take a break because so much of your work happens in your head. The ideating and collaborating with people feels like you’re not really “doing” anything. But you need to lean into the fact that thinking time is working time, and you deserve a rest, even if it looks like you’ve been taking a break the whole time.
If you feel yourself getting foggy late at night but have a bunch of work to do, head to bed and plan on getting up early in the morning instead. And on days you’re off, be fully off. Don’t check emails or social media (if you can). You’re in this for the long haul, so it’s important that you carve out the space you need to be your best current self.
How to Keep Your Rest Guilt-Free
It’s tempting to get sucked into other people’s rhythms and ideas about how much rest you should get. Especially if you’re a food creative, there can be a lot of comparison about how much you should be working and hustling. But now that you know the purpose of your weekly Sabbath, the 7 different types of rest and why it’s an all-star move to make this part of your working process, you’ll have a stronger foundation to stand on.
And if you’d like to spend more time learning about this, click here to read more about why writers need white space. It’s the excuse you don’t need to stare off into the Amalfi Coast with your third cappuccino.