7 Types of Rest for the Founder
7 Types of Rest for the Founder
Rest. Probably something you often neglect in your founder lifestyle. Alongside diet and nutrition, appropriate rest is often the first thing to go when our calendar gets full and we’re juggling a lot of things at once. But did you know, there’s actually 7 different types of rest? This is an idea coined by Saundra Dalton-Smith MD. Don’t panic, let’s take a look at them together and see how you as a founder, can get more rest.
Want to find out which type of rest you need the most? Take the quiz here: https://www.restquiz.com/quiz/rest-quiz-test/
1) Physical Rest
This is probably the one you were already thinking about when you read “rest”. Physical rest refers to sleep; physically resting your body and recharging. This is something that shouldn’t ever be neglected, and the National Sleep Foundation recommends at least 7 hours a night. Their research has shown that lack of sleep has numerous impacts on your cognition and ability to perform.
How can I physically rest as a founder?
When we spoke to sleep expert Dr Jeff Gish he recommended for founders to tailor their day around how much sleep they had, when they are stretched for time. In the start-up world, we understand that some nights you just might not hit your full 420 minute sleep-target, and that’s okay we’re all human. But maybe step back and recognise that when you are running on 4 hours rest you won’t be operating at your peak. Assess what’s in your calendar that day; maybe think about pushing tasks back or delegating responsibility to lighten the load on your shoulders. We know the science, our cognitive performance and ability to make appropriate decisions is weakened on less sleep, so don’t attempt to make ground-breaking, earth-shattering changes to your start-up when you haven’t nurtured your mind and body to be able to do so.
2) Mental Rest
This is about giving your brain a break. ‘Cognitive load’ is a term used to describe the amount of thoughts whirring around your brain at once. It’s like when you have too many tabs open on your computer at once and it slows down; when you have too many things on your mind at once, it slows down, it makes mistakes, it can't problem-solve. Mental rest ensures you are giving your working mind a break to let it recharge and go again.
How can I mentally rest as a founder?
A super practical way of reducing your cognitive load is writing it down. Offloading into a journal, onto the notes app on your phone, or a napkin in a coffee shop. Relieving your brain of the thoughts by allowing them to flow onto the page.
Have you ever found yourself laying in bed at night, but can’t sleep because your brain is whirring, with thoughts, ideas and worries going through your mind? Keep a notepad next to your bed and jot down whatever is on your mind, it can stay in that notepad and be addressed in the morning. This gives you a little more headspace and relieves your mind of some of that heavy-weighted cognitive load.
3) Social Rest
Social rest can mean one of two things depending on what you need at the time.
You may need either:
a) Deeper connection and you need more time spent socially
b) Time to yourself, and less time spent socially
Depending on if you are in need of (a) or (b), if you are in need of social rest you are either feeling drained after spending time with others and in need of your own space, or you’re feeling disconnected and seeking alignment with other people in your life.
How can I socially rest as a founder?
Firstly, I’d encourage you to reflect on what you feel you are currently missing and/or in need of. Are you feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated? Or are you feeling lonely, and left out for the loop?
To socially rest, you first need to identify which relationships in your life ‘fill your cup’ and which ones pour all your energy out. Likelihood is you can categorise most people in your life into one of these categories here. Social rest for you may look like finding a balance, an equilibrium, between spending time with both. Maybe you’ve been spending too much time with those who drain you, or maybe you’ve just been neglecting the relationships who fill you up.
4) Spiritual Rest
Spiritual rest is going to look different to everyone depending on their spiritual stance and beliefs. But finding a practice that allows you to feel a sense of grounding, connectedness and purpose serves as spiritual rest.
How can I get spiritual rest as a founder?
A faith-based practice may look like connecting to your beliefs through a religious practice such as prayer or religious rituals, and non-religious practice may look like meditation, time in nature, connection with community etc. Spiritual rest is unique to you and how you connect with the world.
5) Sensory Rest
There is only so much our brain’s can take, and if there is one thing you take away from this article, it is that. But this point is also important to remember when considering sensory rest. We can only absorb and perceive so much sensation and stimuli in our environment before we become overstimulated and overwhelmed.
How can I get sensory rest as a founder?
A founder’s world can be overstimulating. From the amount of time spent on Zoom and behind a screen, to multi-tasking, from background noise in a busy office or coffee shop. There’s only so much stimuli our brain can process at one time and fulfils our cognitive load. Sensory rest for the founder may look like some time spent in a quiet, dark room, spending time outside in nature (green space, and no, don’t take your headphones). Even doing something as simple as blocking out any external sounds and closing your eyes for a minute or two during the day can reduce overstimulation and release any tension from the senses.
6) Emotional Rest
As people, we spend most of our day being un-authentic with our emotions, rather than expressing them freely. This all boils down to it not being socially-appropriate to express feelings in every situation. Screaming out your frustrations in the middle of the supermarket isn’t typically seen as acceptable behaviour, even if that’s what your emotions are telling you to do. However, keeping your true emotions bottled up and suppressed all the time is not healthy for ourselves and for our minds. Emotional rest includes giving yourself the space to release this, and be authentic.
How can I get emotional rest as a founder?
Finding an effective emotional-release for yourself is going to be a journey of self-discovery in and of its own. Dive deep, reflect, identify when and where and with whom you feel like you can express yourself authentically, without judgement and in a raw, human way. Screaming into a pillow helps you to let it all out? Go for it! Have a friend you can vent to without judgement? Give them a call. Find solace in expressing yourself through writing, art or exercise? Schedule in 20 minutes this week to do just that. Make your mental health a priority, make it a non-negotiable meeting in your calendar.
7) Creative Rest
You may not be the most creative person, or maybe you are, but creative rest is also important for the health of our minds. By nature we want to be creative, and this serves as an emotional release, a connection with something other than work and time to reflect and search within yourself. Creative rest is key to sparking new ideas, reawakening that part of yourself in work and life. As a founder, this is especially important, if you want to be able to effectively problem-solve and come up with innovative solutions, creative rest will give your mind the space to do that.
How can I get creative rest as a founder?
Painting, sewing, cooking, music, dance; these are all examples you were probably already thinking of… and then thinking about how much time they would take. As a founder you need to find what works for you. Scheduling a 15 minute creativity session once every so often for your team is a simple yet effective way to incorporate creative rest into a workday, and also serves as a team social activity. Encouraging the team to get creative, even if you have limited resources! Give yourself a piece of paper, a pen, and 15 minutes, you’ll be surprised with what can happen.
So, there we go...
The 7 types of rest. As a founder, you’re going to be crunched for time, you’re going to feel the pressure and you’re going to feel the chaos of the start-up world. But this should never come at the expense of your mental health. See if you can take even 1 or 2 of these types of rest, and set them as a monthly target for you to work on, and I promise that your future self, and your company, will be better for it.
Written by: Dani Olliffe, Psychological Well-being Associate
7 Types of Rest for the Founder
7 Types of Rest for the Founder
Rest. Probably something you often neglect in your founder lifestyle. Alongside diet and nutrition, appropriate rest is often the first thing to go when our calendar gets full and we’re juggling a lot of things at once. But did you know, there’s actually 7 different types of rest? This is an idea coined by Saundra Dalton-Smith MD. Don’t panic, let’s take a look at them together and see how you as a founder, can get more rest.
Want to find out which type of rest you need the most? Take the quiz here: https://www.restquiz.com/quiz/rest-quiz-test/
1) Physical Rest
This is probably the one you were already thinking about when you read “rest”. Physical rest refers to sleep; physically resting your body and recharging. This is something that shouldn’t ever be neglected, and the National Sleep Foundation recommends at least 7 hours a night. Their research has shown that lack of sleep has numerous impacts on your cognition and ability to perform.
How can I physically rest as a founder?
When we spoke to sleep expert Dr Jeff Gish he recommended for founders to tailor their day around how much sleep they had, when they are stretched for time. In the start-up world, we understand that some nights you just might not hit your full 420 minute sleep-target, and that’s okay we’re all human. But maybe step back and recognise that when you are running on 4 hours rest you won’t be operating at your peak. Assess what’s in your calendar that day; maybe think about pushing tasks back or delegating responsibility to lighten the load on your shoulders. We know the science, our cognitive performance and ability to make appropriate decisions is weakened on less sleep, so don’t attempt to make ground-breaking, earth-shattering changes to your start-up when you haven’t nurtured your mind and body to be able to do so.
2) Mental Rest
This is about giving your brain a break. ‘Cognitive load’ is a term used to describe the amount of thoughts whirring around your brain at once. It’s like when you have too many tabs open on your computer at once and it slows down; when you have too many things on your mind at once, it slows down, it makes mistakes, it can't problem-solve. Mental rest ensures you are giving your working mind a break to let it recharge and go again.
How can I mentally rest as a founder?
A super practical way of reducing your cognitive load is writing it down. Offloading into a journal, onto the notes app on your phone, or a napkin in a coffee shop. Relieving your brain of the thoughts by allowing them to flow onto the page.
Have you ever found yourself laying in bed at night, but can’t sleep because your brain is whirring, with thoughts, ideas and worries going through your mind? Keep a notepad next to your bed and jot down whatever is on your mind, it can stay in that notepad and be addressed in the morning. This gives you a little more headspace and relieves your mind of some of that heavy-weighted cognitive load.
3) Social Rest
Social rest can mean one of two things depending on what you need at the time.
You may need either:
a) Deeper connection and you need more time spent socially
b) Time to yourself, and less time spent socially
Depending on if you are in need of (a) or (b), if you are in need of social rest you are either feeling drained after spending time with others and in need of your own space, or you’re feeling disconnected and seeking alignment with other people in your life.
How can I socially rest as a founder?
Firstly, I’d encourage you to reflect on what you feel you are currently missing and/or in need of. Are you feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated? Or are you feeling lonely, and left out for the loop?
To socially rest, you first need to identify which relationships in your life ‘fill your cup’ and which ones pour all your energy out. Likelihood is you can categorise most people in your life into one of these categories here. Social rest for you may look like finding a balance, an equilibrium, between spending time with both. Maybe you’ve been spending too much time with those who drain you, or maybe you’ve just been neglecting the relationships who fill you up.
4) Spiritual Rest
Spiritual rest is going to look different to everyone depending on their spiritual stance and beliefs. But finding a practice that allows you to feel a sense of grounding, connectedness and purpose serves as spiritual rest.
How can I get spiritual rest as a founder?
A faith-based practice may look like connecting to your beliefs through a religious practice such as prayer or religious rituals, and non-religious practice may look like meditation, time in nature, connection with community etc. Spiritual rest is unique to you and how you connect with the world.
5) Sensory Rest
There is only so much our brain’s can take, and if there is one thing you take away from this article, it is that. But this point is also important to remember when considering sensory rest. We can only absorb and perceive so much sensation and stimuli in our environment before we become overstimulated and overwhelmed.
How can I get sensory rest as a founder?
A founder’s world can be overstimulating. From the amount of time spent on Zoom and behind a screen, to multi-tasking, from background noise in a busy office or coffee shop. There’s only so much stimuli our brain can process at one time and fulfils our cognitive load. Sensory rest for the founder may look like some time spent in a quiet, dark room, spending time outside in nature (green space, and no, don’t take your headphones). Even doing something as simple as blocking out any external sounds and closing your eyes for a minute or two during the day can reduce overstimulation and release any tension from the senses.
6) Emotional Rest
As people, we spend most of our day being un-authentic with our emotions, rather than expressing them freely. This all boils down to it not being socially-appropriate to express feelings in every situation. Screaming out your frustrations in the middle of the supermarket isn’t typically seen as acceptable behaviour, even if that’s what your emotions are telling you to do. However, keeping your true emotions bottled up and suppressed all the time is not healthy for ourselves and for our minds. Emotional rest includes giving yourself the space to release this, and be authentic.
How can I get emotional rest as a founder?
Finding an effective emotional-release for yourself is going to be a journey of self-discovery in and of its own. Dive deep, reflect, identify when and where and with whom you feel like you can express yourself authentically, without judgement and in a raw, human way. Screaming into a pillow helps you to let it all out? Go for it! Have a friend you can vent to without judgement? Give them a call. Find solace in expressing yourself through writing, art or exercise? Schedule in 20 minutes this week to do just that. Make your mental health a priority, make it a non-negotiable meeting in your calendar.
7) Creative Rest
You may not be the most creative person, or maybe you are, but creative rest is also important for the health of our minds. By nature we want to be creative, and this serves as an emotional release, a connection with something other than work and time to reflect and search within yourself. Creative rest is key to sparking new ideas, reawakening that part of yourself in work and life. As a founder, this is especially important, if you want to be able to effectively problem-solve and come up with innovative solutions, creative rest will give your mind the space to do that.
How can I get creative rest as a founder?
Painting, sewing, cooking, music, dance; these are all examples you were probably already thinking of… and then thinking about how much time they would take. As a founder you need to find what works for you. Scheduling a 15 minute creativity session once every so often for your team is a simple yet effective way to incorporate creative rest into a workday, and also serves as a team social activity. Encouraging the team to get creative, even if you have limited resources! Give yourself a piece of paper, a pen, and 15 minutes, you’ll be surprised with what can happen.
So, there we go...
The 7 types of rest. As a founder, you’re going to be crunched for time, you’re going to feel the pressure and you’re going to feel the chaos of the start-up world. But this should never come at the expense of your mental health. See if you can take even 1 or 2 of these types of rest, and set them as a monthly target for you to work on, and I promise that your future self, and your company, will be better for it.
Written by: Dani Olliffe, Psychological Well-being Associate
7 Types of Rest for the Founder
7 Types of Rest for the Founder
Rest. Probably something you often neglect in your founder lifestyle. Alongside diet and nutrition, appropriate rest is often the first thing to go when our calendar gets full and we’re juggling a lot of things at once. But did you know, there’s actually 7 different types of rest? This is an idea coined by Saundra Dalton-Smith MD. Don’t panic, let’s take a look at them together and see how you as a founder, can get more rest.
Want to find out which type of rest you need the most? Take the quiz here: https://www.restquiz.com/quiz/rest-quiz-test/
1) Physical Rest
This is probably the one you were already thinking about when you read “rest”. Physical rest refers to sleep; physically resting your body and recharging. This is something that shouldn’t ever be neglected, and the National Sleep Foundation recommends at least 7 hours a night. Their research has shown that lack of sleep has numerous impacts on your cognition and ability to perform.
How can I physically rest as a founder?
When we spoke to sleep expert Dr Jeff Gish he recommended for founders to tailor their day around how much sleep they had, when they are stretched for time. In the start-up world, we understand that some nights you just might not hit your full 420 minute sleep-target, and that’s okay we’re all human. But maybe step back and recognise that when you are running on 4 hours rest you won’t be operating at your peak. Assess what’s in your calendar that day; maybe think about pushing tasks back or delegating responsibility to lighten the load on your shoulders. We know the science, our cognitive performance and ability to make appropriate decisions is weakened on less sleep, so don’t attempt to make ground-breaking, earth-shattering changes to your start-up when you haven’t nurtured your mind and body to be able to do so.
2) Mental Rest
This is about giving your brain a break. ‘Cognitive load’ is a term used to describe the amount of thoughts whirring around your brain at once. It’s like when you have too many tabs open on your computer at once and it slows down; when you have too many things on your mind at once, it slows down, it makes mistakes, it can't problem-solve. Mental rest ensures you are giving your working mind a break to let it recharge and go again.
How can I mentally rest as a founder?
A super practical way of reducing your cognitive load is writing it down. Offloading into a journal, onto the notes app on your phone, or a napkin in a coffee shop. Relieving your brain of the thoughts by allowing them to flow onto the page.
Have you ever found yourself laying in bed at night, but can’t sleep because your brain is whirring, with thoughts, ideas and worries going through your mind? Keep a notepad next to your bed and jot down whatever is on your mind, it can stay in that notepad and be addressed in the morning. This gives you a little more headspace and relieves your mind of some of that heavy-weighted cognitive load.
3) Social Rest
Social rest can mean one of two things depending on what you need at the time.
You may need either:
a) Deeper connection and you need more time spent socially
b) Time to yourself, and less time spent socially
Depending on if you are in need of (a) or (b), if you are in need of social rest you are either feeling drained after spending time with others and in need of your own space, or you’re feeling disconnected and seeking alignment with other people in your life.
How can I socially rest as a founder?
Firstly, I’d encourage you to reflect on what you feel you are currently missing and/or in need of. Are you feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated? Or are you feeling lonely, and left out for the loop?
To socially rest, you first need to identify which relationships in your life ‘fill your cup’ and which ones pour all your energy out. Likelihood is you can categorise most people in your life into one of these categories here. Social rest for you may look like finding a balance, an equilibrium, between spending time with both. Maybe you’ve been spending too much time with those who drain you, or maybe you’ve just been neglecting the relationships who fill you up.
4) Spiritual Rest
Spiritual rest is going to look different to everyone depending on their spiritual stance and beliefs. But finding a practice that allows you to feel a sense of grounding, connectedness and purpose serves as spiritual rest.
How can I get spiritual rest as a founder?
A faith-based practice may look like connecting to your beliefs through a religious practice such as prayer or religious rituals, and non-religious practice may look like meditation, time in nature, connection with community etc. Spiritual rest is unique to you and how you connect with the world.
5) Sensory Rest
There is only so much our brain’s can take, and if there is one thing you take away from this article, it is that. But this point is also important to remember when considering sensory rest. We can only absorb and perceive so much sensation and stimuli in our environment before we become overstimulated and overwhelmed.
How can I get sensory rest as a founder?
A founder’s world can be overstimulating. From the amount of time spent on Zoom and behind a screen, to multi-tasking, from background noise in a busy office or coffee shop. There’s only so much stimuli our brain can process at one time and fulfils our cognitive load. Sensory rest for the founder may look like some time spent in a quiet, dark room, spending time outside in nature (green space, and no, don’t take your headphones). Even doing something as simple as blocking out any external sounds and closing your eyes for a minute or two during the day can reduce overstimulation and release any tension from the senses.
6) Emotional Rest
As people, we spend most of our day being un-authentic with our emotions, rather than expressing them freely. This all boils down to it not being socially-appropriate to express feelings in every situation. Screaming out your frustrations in the middle of the supermarket isn’t typically seen as acceptable behaviour, even if that’s what your emotions are telling you to do. However, keeping your true emotions bottled up and suppressed all the time is not healthy for ourselves and for our minds. Emotional rest includes giving yourself the space to release this, and be authentic.
How can I get emotional rest as a founder?
Finding an effective emotional-release for yourself is going to be a journey of self-discovery in and of its own. Dive deep, reflect, identify when and where and with whom you feel like you can express yourself authentically, without judgement and in a raw, human way. Screaming into a pillow helps you to let it all out? Go for it! Have a friend you can vent to without judgement? Give them a call. Find solace in expressing yourself through writing, art or exercise? Schedule in 20 minutes this week to do just that. Make your mental health a priority, make it a non-negotiable meeting in your calendar.
7) Creative Rest
You may not be the most creative person, or maybe you are, but creative rest is also important for the health of our minds. By nature we want to be creative, and this serves as an emotional release, a connection with something other than work and time to reflect and search within yourself. Creative rest is key to sparking new ideas, reawakening that part of yourself in work and life. As a founder, this is especially important, if you want to be able to effectively problem-solve and come up with innovative solutions, creative rest will give your mind the space to do that.
How can I get creative rest as a founder?
Painting, sewing, cooking, music, dance; these are all examples you were probably already thinking of… and then thinking about how much time they would take. As a founder you need to find what works for you. Scheduling a 15 minute creativity session once every so often for your team is a simple yet effective way to incorporate creative rest into a workday, and also serves as a team social activity. Encouraging the team to get creative, even if you have limited resources! Give yourself a piece of paper, a pen, and 15 minutes, you’ll be surprised with what can happen.
So, there we go...
The 7 types of rest. As a founder, you’re going to be crunched for time, you’re going to feel the pressure and you’re going to feel the chaos of the start-up world. But this should never come at the expense of your mental health. See if you can take even 1 or 2 of these types of rest, and set them as a monthly target for you to work on, and I promise that your future self, and your company, will be better for it.
Written by: Dani Olliffe, Psychological Well-being Associate