A few weeks ago, I listened to a talk by Claudia Hammond, the author of the book “The Art (and Science) of Rest”. Along with colleagues from Durham University, she surveyed 18,000 people from 135 different countries what they thought about rest. Here are some insights from the largest study on rest.

1. Rest is distinct from sleep

For anyone who promptly falls asleep after a long day of work and is congratulating themselves for “finally taking a break” is probably not doing an excellent job of it. Sleep is unequivocally important but rest, the act of being wakeful and doing activities that rejuvenate you is an essential aspect of mental health.

2. Rest is important but not necessarily too much of it

Now, it might be a no-brainer that people with inadequate rest (less than an hour a day) had lower levels of well-being than those with adequate amounts. But the surprising finding is that those with 10 to 11 hours of rest also had low levels of well-being! What does this mean? Well…

3. Rest is beneficial only if it’s a choice

…it was found that those with unusually long rest periods had no option but to rest. For example, a lady with chronic pain said that she was forced to sit on a chair all day at home. A prison inmate noted that although he spent 23 hours a day in his cell doing pretty much nothing (which is a form of rest), he didn’t choose it, making him feel restless rather than rested. Thus, more important than the quantity of rest, it’s whether you’ve decided on it that makes it genuinely restorative.

4. Rest improves memory

In a memory experiment, people recalled a list of words better if allowed to take a short break in a dark room than if they were asked to do simple tasks in the interim.

Astonishingly, amnesiacs (who have poorer memory recall than the general population) scored 49% percent on the memory test when they were in a dark room compared to the 14% who had not rested.

5. People think busy is better

Two thirds of survey respondents mentioned wanting to be more well-rested. So what’s stopping them? Well, they view busyness as a badge of honour. You know this on a visceral level when you choose to leave work a little later to give the illusion of being busy.

In an experiment, two groups of participants were given a Facebook profile of a fictitious person, Sally. For the 1st group, Sally was made out to be a busy person who wrote posts like “Got to have a quick 10 minute lunch today”. In the 2nd group however, Sally was portrayed as someone with more free time, someone who was out by 4pm on a weekday. Not only was busy Sally perceived more positively, she was, ironically, thought to be more efficient!

Okay, I get it. Rest is great but how do I rest? Check out Part 2 to find out!

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