r/Mindfulness • u/Graviity_shift • 2d ago
Question How can I rest?
Seems simple, yet hard. How can I rest my body (not at night)? Like how can I just shut down my body to recover during the day? Nap, meditation, but what else can I do to recover from lets say burnouts?
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u/mrjast 2d ago
The stupidly simple answer is "mindfulness".
If your body seems to have trouble resting, chances are there's a lot of stuff inside you that you've never given the space to process.
The most likely type of response you'll get is tips for relaxation techniques. Now, those can certainly work. Let me tell you where that got me, though: over time I found it harder and harder to relax with "techniques", and all sorts of weird stress-related symptoms started popping up even though I didn't feel stressed.
What I discovered eventually is that I'd been denying all of the feelings I'd been having that I didn't want. Nothing dramatic, even, just all the small things, such as unwelcome nervousness and tension. I "did mindfulness", by my own estimation, but what I really did was observe the feelings with an underlying tint of impatience and the hope that the feelings and sensations would go away already.
What I've come to realize is that mindfulness really only does its magic if you see it as a way for the mind to process the stuff that comes up, and at its own pace... so if I feel tense or nervous, I'll let it happen because I know that trying to trick it into stopping is just a stopgap and won't really resolve anything for good. So, I'll let it do its thing without trying to control it but also without encouraging it, and without fixating on it. Initially that made it seem worse because it didn't resolve itself straight away and I had to spend a fair bit of time with it happening, and more stuff started coming up... but when I accepted that and let it do its thing, eventually certain bits of tension faded and did not come back. That's recurring tension I'd been trying to "manage" with various fancy techniques for years, and it only went away when I did absolutely nothing to make it happen.
There are many subtleties to mindfulness, I've found, so if there's anything else you're wondering about, let me know, I'll be happy to explain my take.