Yoga Hero: All of Yoga Podcast – Episode 7

7: Micro resting, midi resting and maxi resting

We’ve created this podcast episode to give you tips, tricks and techniques to bring more rest in to your life, whether that’s micro resting, midi resting, or maxi resting.

So first of all, what is rest? Often rest is thought of as a long bath, or watching a series on the TV, or being horizontal on the couch, or going on holiday, and let me tell you, there is NOTHING wrong with these things, at all. But we can widen how we look at rest, which is good because it gives us more potential to bring more rest into our lives.

Let’s think of rest as not working and not worrying.

Anatomy Hero: The Spine in Yoga

Have you ever wondered what it’s like to learn anatomy? Or why it’s relevant to a physical yoga practice? Well, take a sneak peek at our Anatomy Hero: The spine in yoga session, which is completely free!

As always, we would love to know what you think of the Yoga Hero: All of Yoga Podcast, do leave an honest review if you can, or drop us a message @beayogahero

Read ‘Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less’

This book, by Alex Pang, explains the default mode network, deep play, and much more. It’s brilliant!

Read ‘Rest’ by Alex Pang

Listen to ‘Micro rest’ where you get your podcasts:

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Thank you, and happy listening!

Micro resting, midi resting and maxi resting – Transcript

Rest is often something that we think of, as something to do when everything else is done, or when everything else is under control. But, when we leave rest to do, when everything else is ticked off…. well, we never get to it.

We’ve created this podcast episode to give you tips, tricks and techniques to bring more rest in to your life, whether that’s micro resting, midi resting, or maxi resting.
So first of all, what is rest? Often rest is thought of as a long bath, or watching a series on the TV, or being horizontal on the couch, or going on holiday, and let me tell you, there is NOTHING wrong with these things, at all. But we can widen how we look at rest, which is good because it gives us more potential to bring more rest into our lives.

Let’s think of rest as not working and not worrying. Let’s also think of rest as a skill we can develop.

Micro resting

Micro resting is an idea that’s gaining traction at the moment. It’s exactly what it says: micro, tiny, iddy bitty acts of rest that you can do regularly in your day. I’ll go on to some ideas in a moment, but before I do, let me just tell where I stand on micro resting. In my job as a yoga teacher I see people who are on the verge of burn out quite regularly. The pressures of modern life, the pressures that we put on ourselves, the pressures coming from others all mean that people work harder and longer hours to try to achieve more, the ongoing stress of this starts to affect their nervous system, and before long, they’re burned out.
Micro rest in and of itself will not fix this problem. It’s not a standalone, long term, viable solution to create balance and harmony. But it does help, and it will help to work towards creating balance. So here are some suggestions for weaving acts of micro rest in to your day, but please ensure you compliment them with bigger acts of rest too.

Ok, micro rest suggestions:

Two deep breaths before you open an unread email
Mindful shoulder rolls when you get in the car
Slow wrist circles when you sit down at your desk
A mini hand massage after you’ve washed your hands
A full body deep stretch when you get up from your desk
Sit on the side of the bed and recall three things from your day that you’re grateful for at bed time
A little face massage before sleep
Ankle circles when you wake up

In short, micro rest are short periods, maybe a minute or two, maybe even less than a minute, of not working and not worrying. The trick is not to wait until everything is done, but to integrate micro rests in to your day.

Midi rest

As far as I’m aware, midi rest isn’t really a term, but later on in this episode we’ll look at maxi-resting; big chunks of not working and not worrying that you plan in to your life, like a holiday. So we needed a mid-point, something between one minute and one week… Hence midi resting. I’d say for most people, this is something like a yoga class; an hour – there or thereabouts – of putting life on hold, hitting the reset button, focusing on something else.

Remember, we can think of rest of not working and not worrying, so even your most active yoga class will be included in this definition. There’s a really brilliant book called ‘Rest: Why we get more done when we work less’ by Alex Pang, and he advocates something called deep play, something that is immersive and demanding and really takes your focus off life. He says that when we’re in a state of deep play, something called the default mode network is activated, which is a region of the brain that solves the unsolved problems we have, and answers the unanswered questions. You know if you’d been doing a crossword and you just cannot remember that word… you know it’s in your brain somewhere, it’s really not coming to you… then you remember it halfway through cooking dinner? That’s the default mode network, answering the question for you, while you’re focused on something else, while you’re engaged in something else.

I believe that yoga, when practiced with the intention of being present, so focusing on the breath, then sensations in the body in that moment, is the ultimate deep play. Not only is it an opportunity to put life on pause for the duration of the class, but because you’re so absorbed in the class, your default mode network can get to work sorting everything out for you. And remember, even though we’re talking about doing yoga for rest, it doesn’t necessarily have to be what you might consider to be a ‘restful’ class – a power flow class can serve as rest! But there’s something I want to stress here; and that’s that the intention while practising is key, do your best to stay focused and present.

By the way, if you would like to book in some midi-rest, something that is designed to be completely relaxing, check out our Pure Relaxation workshops at Yoga Hero; described as unadulterated rest; this is something that you can book in to your diary, commit to, and know is happening in your life, to counter some of the stress that you might be experiencing at the moment.
Other ideas for midi rest:

Any yoga class
A guided or unguided meditation
massage
facial or any other treatment that you would find beneficial
Rock climbing or bouldering
Knitting
Learning something; watching TED talk or listening to a podcast, ahem
Cooking
Reading
Mindful colouring
In fact, any mindfulness exercises
Qi gong
Walking
Gardening
and so many more!

Maxi rest

Here we’re looking at chunks of your life dedicated to not working and not worrying. This might mean being somewhere other than home, if home presents you with a to do list longer than your arm, if every time you walk in to a room, you find your self tidying or engaging in some sort of house work or mentally adding to your to do list, this might not present the most effective environment for not worrying. Now in theory, cleaning could be a midi rest activity; it is so absorbing, it gets the blood moving around the body which can be a step towards ridding the body of stress hormones, but I’d just be aware that with cleaning it can trigger worry; now i need to do that room, that’s not clean enough, that’s what I need to do next etc. So, let’s focus on ideas that are away from the home, and maybe you can use some of them within your home if that suits you better.

I’d say we’re looking a maxi rest as being at least a few days, so a weekend or longer. A few days, or more, not working and not worrying. Now, if you’re going on holiday with the kids, for many people, worry is part and parcel of that, so we’re being pragmatic and realistic, it might not be that the entire time is completely devoid of worry, but the worry is hopefully going to be about short term, immediate problems, and overall, there’ll be less worry. Remember, we can take steps to control what we worry about, for more on that topic, listen to episode 4: the thing about thoughts.

Before we look at suggestions, there is one thing I’d love to tell you about for maxi rest, because it’s THE most relaxing time I’ve ever had in my entire life, which is the Restorative Training with mindfulness and yoga nidra. This course, held at Yoga Hero at the end of March, and we’ll run it again later in the year, is steeped in relaxation. Throughout the five day training, you’re either doing restorative yoga, which are poses that are completely supported so your body can totally surrender. Or you’re undertaking some mindfulness activities. Or you’re being lead through a yoga nidra, which is a guided mediation done usually lying down to guide you to your most relaxed state… It’s an incredible, immersive, relaxaing experience, five days of retreating in to relaxation and calm. After I did this training a few years ago, i just felt so refreshed, clear, awake, and ABLE. Somehow, I felt like I could get on with things rather than being swamped by the amount of stuff to do. If you want to find out more about this training, just go to yogahero.co.uk/restorative – it’s open to anyone who wants to learn about rest.

Ok, so some ideas for maxi rest, and in the interests of full disclosure, not all these ideas will be available to everyone, but hopefully they will give you food for thought and inspiration about bringing bigger chunks of rest in to your life

a holiday
a sabbatical
a yoga training, such a restorative training, or any other style of yoga that you enjoy
a yoga retreat
a mindfulness retreat
a house swap?

So there you go, whether you have 1 minute or 1 month, there’s some inspiration to bringing more balance in to your life, to keep the frazzle to a minimum. I can’t stress enough how the intention is key. Going to a yoga class and moving through the poses while fretting, worrying, ruminating over a meeting you’ve got coming up is not as impactful as focusing on moving your thinking mind away from the worry and on to your breath. You use all your tools and presence to do this, again and again and again, as many times as you need to.

Happy resting, heroes! Hope to see you for some non-working and non-worrying time in our studio or online soon.

Go and have a fabulous day, remember, you’re your own hero. See you next time!