It may only be the first month of the new year, but if you look around you’ll probably notice that quite a few of us are already flagging. Maybe we went a bit too hard on the Christmas festivities or didn’t allow ourselves as much of a break as we probably should have. Either way, the truth for most people is that, no matter how hard we might try, we never really feel fully rested.

“So many of us feel bombarded by life at the moment, but we have to accept that we’re not just going to snap back straight away because it’s a new year,” says science journalist Amy Arthur, author of Pace Yourself: How To Have Energy In An Exhausting World. “We’re returning to the office and starting new habits, all while trying to fight off colds and balancing everything else that life throws at us.”

For Arthur, the societal belief that we need to be doing something all of the time is the root of so much of our physical and mental exhaustion. “Rest isn’t something that our current lifestyle is really set up for,” she says. “It sounds strange to say, but it still takes energy to be able to rest and help ourselves to become less exhausted.”

Therefore, for rest to become a habit, we have to change the mindset that it’s optional. “Rest is always the thing we seem to give up or postpone so easily,” Arthur shares. “But we have to stop ignoring our bodies’ cues and treat rest as a non-negotiable.”

So how can we go from tired all the time to focused and energised? Here, Arthur shares her top three ways to carve out time for rest. 

Accept your own resistance to rest – and then challenge it

Start by thinking about what rest truly means to you. Is it sleeping enough every night, making sure you take time to decompress when you log off from work each day or all of the above? In physics terms, at least, Arthur says that it comes down to the basic rules of motion – anything that isn’t in motion, and is completely still, is at rest. Of course, our bodies can never truly be in this state. Our minds have to work, our blood has to pump around our body and our lungs have to breathe. However, there is another way that an object can rest: if an equal and opposite force is countering it.

“For many of us, when we do sit down to rest, we immediately feel some kind of pressure or guilt, as if we should be using the time for something else,” Arthur explains. “So for any of us to really rest, we need to exert our own equal and opposite force to say: ‘No, I need to rest. I know that this is the right thing for me.’ You have to accept your own resistance and then challenge it.”

Even the act of consciously fighting off the urge to ‘just’ unload the dishwasher or ‘just’ answer an email is a restful activity within itself, and one we should all be doing more of at that.

Switch off in the right ways

If your work requires a lot of cognitive effort or you often find yourself mentally exhausted at the end of the day, Arthur suggests that the best way to offer yourself true rest is to partake in a more mindless activity – one that you can do almost on autopilot. This means swapping puzzles, reading or your daily Wordle for something lower stakes, like colouring, knitting or even singing. “You need to give your brain time to switch off, but that doesn’t mean you have to just sit and stare into space,” she says. “Think about the kind of energy you’re using most often and pick an activity that pours from an opposite cup.”

This is the time to avoid habit-stacking and take things back to basics. Simplify a walk by leaving your headphones at home. Take 15 minutes to sketch something with pen and paper without worrying about how good it might turn out. Get creative, but don’t overcomplicate things. 

Reconnect with your body

When our bodies are physically exhausted, we can start to get frustrated and wonder why we can’t keep going and push just that little bit more. To combat the negative feelings and ensure that you get the rest you need, Arthur suggests counteracting them by finding ways to engage with your body positively.

“Take a long hot bath with plenty of lovely-smelling essential oils or take the time to moisturise and care for your skin,” she says. “These things really do contribute to lowering your stress levels, whether it’s to do with warmth, touch or just taking an hour where you’re not engaging with anyone else and focusing solely on yourself.”

Pace Yourself: How To Have Energy In An Exhausting World (Black & White Publishing, £14.99) by Amy Arthur is available to buy now. 

Images: Getty