The 4 Pillars of Recovery
“We have stigmatized sleep with the label of laziness.”
Yes, there is no substitute for hard work. If we want to push our boundaries we are gonna encounter resistance and to overcome that we will consume our internal resources- physical, mental and emotional. This is only half of the story, but it is the part that tends to get all the highlights. In modern times we tend to fetishize the late night worker that puts all his energy to reach the goal, somehow surviving on 5 hours of sleep each night. But if we stretch ourselves continually and don’t give our body the necessary recovery we can realistically end up in only one of two positions: either we give up on the goals we’ve set, or we burn out. When we are under-recovered we pay the price not only in our health but also in our performance. We simply can’t give our best consistently if we are not in our best shape. If we want to master the art of recovery there are 4 main areas of concern that we need to take care of:
Sleep well: sleep is to this day the best way nature found to regenerate ourselves. If we don’t know where to start our recovery this is the place to do it. There seems to be no part of our body and mind that does not benefit from a good night of sleep. Our ability to perform physically and mentally is directly tied to the last night of rest. With poor sleep, our capacity for learning, memorizing and problem-solving is significantly impaired during the day. And we include in the list our will power, physical strength and endurance, emotional regulation, diet and choice of food. Getting between 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night is the recommended amount, and it is not negotiable, it doesn’t matter how busy we think we are.
Nutrition and hydration: What we ingest forms the basic building blocks from which our body rebuilds itself. We all already know what a good average diet should look like: lots of fruits and vegetables, variety where it is possible and lots of water. Keeping to a minimum the consumption of sugar and processed foods. Here it’s mostly a matter of creating and keeping good habits.
Exercise: It is also widely accepted that exercise is essential for good health. Our bodies were designed for movement, not for sitting the whole day. Our bodies benefit from a bit of physical stress, and our brains get benefits as well. Exercise helps reduce stress, and if done in a moderate way it leaves us more energized as well. What you might not know is that physical exercise helps develop our capacity for learning and improve our memory by stimulating the generation of new neurons. Exercise doesn’t have to be always painful, just going for a walk is a good place to start.
Think well: our minds can have an enormous impact on our bodies and health. Feelings of fear and anxiety can lead us to fall sick. Living in a mental space of constant anxiousness can undo all the work done on the previous points. When we are anxious our sympathetic system is turned on to fight threats that we can’t even identify (learn more). This can affect the kind of food we crave and the quality and quantity (or lack of) sleep we get. Choosing to focus on positive thoughts has a restoring and energizing quality. Meditation, yoga, practicing gratitude and mindfulness all have a grounding effect of bringing your mind back to here and now, as opposed to feelings of anxiety for the future or rumination on the past.
Our body needs maintenance, we need to work with it to maximize the quality of our health and of our work. The grinding mentality is always disruptive in the long run, and less productive anyway. It’s not necessarily a matter of working less, it’s a matter of optimizing recovery. Sometimes we might not even be aware of how much we are fatigued because we’ve been doing it for so long that our brain has come to accept our current level of functioning as our “standard”. So if you think you are somehow superior to this and that you don’t need it, think twice. Feeling tired, unfocused and moody can all be signs that we are going toward exhaustion and burn out. Learn to listen and celebrate your body, it’s the only thing you really own, and it knows what it needs.
Wishing you a good night sleep
“The wise rest at least as hard as they work.”