Do You Need An Off Switch?

What is your kind of holiday?

Here I am in Melbourne, early morning at David’s place, my teenage daughters still sleeping with a cup of tea at hand. Relaxing. Or am I?

What is ‘relaxing’ - what research has been done into this?

One study I can think of was completed by Dan Buettner (you can watch his Ted talk at this link). Dan’s team collected information on the behaviours of 5 communities that have a statistically abnormal number of centenarians in their midst.

And all five of the communities have some kind of weekly day of rest.

The Sabbath is an most obvious example of this. However, each ‘rest’ day involves a lot of doing: walking, singing, organising. It’s all about being active, related and involved in a different way compared to other days. There’s no ‘off’ day, just another kind of day.

What do you do on your day off? And do you even have that?

It was fascinating to spend personal time with my teacher Marjorie Barstow. It didn’t matter what was happening – Marj was on all the time. She watched me like a hawk, regardless of the time of day. Marj was 86 when I first met her, and she didn’t have an ‘off’ switch.

How did she do that?

While watching Marj, I struggled to define what ‘rest’ actually consists of? Questions like: if I love what I do, so why do I want a rest from it? And I acknowledge that time away from being focused on ‘one thing’ allows my brain to process in a way I don’t understand, yet recognise as yielding benefits of ease, clarity and renewal.

When I teach for more than 6 days in a row, I know a break will ‘refresh’ me and lead to more effective teaching – at least it feels that way to me. I can only define ‘effective’ in my terms, not the students’ terms. It’s their job to define it, and they can tell when I am depleted.

For a long time for me, rest equalled doing nothing. Marj cured me of that notion. Actually, doing nothing is absurd when you consider it deeply enough. How is that even possible? There’s no moment that exists without movement, without doing of some kind.

The question, what kind of doing?

Different. That’s my main idea today, and it seems to be confirmed by the centenarians of Okinawa. When you teach all the time, then being a student is enlivening. When you sit all day, then working out is a refreshing. When you are outputting ideas continuously, then reading the ideas of others is rejuvenating.

Even sleep is a wonderful thing when used correctly. A well timed and deeply experienced sleep can do more to refresh you than anything else.

My final technique is to cry.

I have a few favourite YouTube videos that do the job every time. Or I’ll rent a good crystal flick, settle down with tissues, and let my tears roll. It works better than using violence as a form of entertainment – who needs those stupid Marvel movies anyway?

So, here it all is in a summary:

How To Rest

1. Do the opposite of whatever you have been doing
2. Do something, not nothing: everything is active, so choose consciously
3. Sleep when it’s the obvious option
4. If all else fails, try crying

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